HTMLElement: lang property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The lang property of the HTMLElement interface indicates the base language of an element's attribute values and text content, in the form of a BCP 47 language tag. It reflects the element's lang attribute; the xml:lang attribute does not affect this property.

Note that if the lang attribute is unspecified, the element itself may still inherit the language from its parent. However, that inherited language is not reflected by this property's value.

Value

A string. Common examples include "en" for English, "ja" for Japanese, "es" for Spanish and so on. If unspecified, the value is an empty string.

Examples

js
// this snippet compares the base language and
// redirects to another URL based on language
if (document.documentElement.lang === "en") {
  window.location.href = "Some_document.html.en";
} else if (document.documentElement.lang === "ru") {
  window.location.href = "Some_document.html.ru";
}

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-lang

Browser compatibility

desktop mobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
lang
Chrome – Full support
Chrome 1 (Release date: 2008-12-11)
footnote Full support
Edge – Full support
Edge 12 (Release date: 2015-07-29)
footnote Full support
Firefox – Full support
Firefox 1 (Release date: 2004-11-09)
footnote Full support
Opera – Full support
Opera 12.1 (Release date: 2012-11-20)
footnote Full support
Safari – Full support
Safari 3 (Release date: 2007-10-26)
footnote Full support
Chrome Android – Full support
Chrome Android 18 (Release date: 2012-06-27)
footnote Full support
Firefox for Android – Full support
Firefox for Android 4 (Release date: 2011-03-29)
footnote Full support
Opera Android – Full support
Opera Android 12.1 (Release date: 2012-10-09)
footnote Full support
Safari on iOS – Full support
Safari on iOS 1 (Release date: 2007-06-29)
footnote Full support
Samsung Internet – Full support
Samsung Internet 1 (Release date: 2013-04-27)
footnote Full support
WebView Android – Full support
WebView Android 4.4 (Release date: 2013-12-09)
footnote Full support
WebView on iOS – Full support
WebView on iOS 1 (Release date: 2007-06-29)
footnote Full support

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support