How to extract base URL from a string in JavaScript?

WebKit-based browsers, Firefox as of version 21 and current versions of Internet Explorer (IE 10 and 11) implement location.origin.

location.origin includes the protocol, the domain and optionally the port of the URL.

For example, location.origin of the URL http://www.sitename.com/article/2009/09/14/this-is-an-article/ is http://www.sitename.com.

To target browsers without support for location.origin use the following concise polyfill:

if (typeof location.origin === 'undefined')
    location.origin = location.protocol + '//' + location.host;

Edit: Some complain that it doesn't take into account protocol. So I decided to upgrade the code, since it is marked as answer. For those who like one-line-code... well sorry this why we use code minimizers, code should be human readable and this way is better... in my opinion.

var pathArray = "https://somedomain.com".split( '/' );
var protocol = pathArray[0];
var host = pathArray[2];
var url = protocol + '//' + host;

Or use Davids solution from below.

Don't need to use jQuery, just use

location.hostname