event.target property

The event.target property contains the element on which the event fired. This is not the element to which the event handler was attached, but the deepest tag that was directly clicked on, for example.

Syntax

event.target;

Example

Let's say we have div with a paragraph inside it. Let's bind the event to the div, but click on the paragraph - in this case, event.target will contain the end tag in which the event happened - that is, the paragraph, not the div. Verify this with tagName:

<div id="div">
	<p>text</p>
</div>

let div = document.querySelector('#div');

div.addEventListener('click', function(event) {
	console.log(event.target); // displays a reference to a paragraph
});

event.target property

Syntax

Example

See also