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Common iliac artery: anatomy, location and function

The common iliac arteries are the two terminal branches of the abdominal aorta. They supply the pelvis and the lower limbs through their branches.

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Highlighted in the model: Common iliac artery. Click any part to read about it, or switch off “Highlight topic” to see the whole body. 3D data: BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0; meshes simplified and recoloured. The model is an adult male.

Common iliac artery at a glance

What it is
The common iliac arteries are the two terminal branches of the abdominal aorta.
Location
The aorta divides at about L4 and each common iliac artery runs down and laterally about 5 cm to the pelvic brim, where it divides in front of the sacroiliac joint into the external and internal iliac arteries.
Function
They supply the pelvis and the lower limbs through their branches.
Body system
Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
FMA ID
FMA14766 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • The ureter crosses the end of the common iliac artery, or the start of the external iliac, at the pelvic brim.

Structures next to the common iliac artery

The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Common iliac artery (FMA14766). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
  3. Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.

Related anatomy

Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.