<p>A site's home page is routed via a special route <code>__home__</code>. I don't believe you can set that in <code>routes.php</code>, but it's worth a shot. Generally, you specify a Single as the homepage, and can set the template there. It defaults to <code>index</code>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-17T13:50:38.047Z
Your right, was not able to set it with that variable.
Fred Carlsen
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-17T15:14:07.293Z
Did you try routing through a plugin's ```defineSiteRoutes()```? I've no idea if it makes a difference compared to ```routes.php```.
Mats Mikkel Rummelhoff
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-17T16:16:25.123Z
I don't think it would. I believe Craft does some scrubbing before it adds the `__home__` entry to the route. It's using Yii's router class and I don't believe `__home__` to be a proper route. Why not use a Single or include the other template in the `index.html` template?
Bryan Redeagle
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-17T12:02:13.703Z
2015-09-17T12:02:13.703Z
Bryan Redeagle
<p>I'm trying to route the homepage / to a specific template. In my routes.php file, i've tried these two without result:</p>

<pre><code>return array(
    '/' =&gt; 'specific/_entry',
    '' =&gt; 'specific/_entry',
);
</code></pre>

<routing>
Route / to specific template
# Route / to specific template

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-09-17)

I'm trying to route the homepage / to a specific template. In my routes.php file, i've tried these two without result:
return array(
    '/' => 'specific/_entry',
    '' => 'specific/_entry',
);

**Tags:** routing

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-09-17. Score: 1

A site's home page is routed via a special route `__home__`. I don't believe you can set that in `routes.php`, but it's worth a shot. Generally, you specify a Single as the homepage, and can set the template there. It defaults to `index`.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Your right, was not able to set it with that variable.  
> **username_2**: Did you try routing through a plugin's ```defineSiteRoutes()```? I've no idea if it makes a difference compared to ```routes.php```.  
> **username_1**: I don't think it would. I believe Craft does some scrubbing before it adds the `__home__` entry to the route. It's using Yii's router class and I don't believe `__home__` to be a proper route. Why not use a Single or include the other template in the `index.html` template?  

---

