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Female urethra: anatomy, location and function

The female urethra is a short tube, about 4 cm long, that carries urine from the bladder to the outside. It conducts urine during voiding. Its external sphincter of skeletal muscle gives voluntary control.

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Highlighted in the model: Female urethra. Click any part to read about it, or switch off “Highlight topic” to see the whole body. Use Male / Female to switch bodies. 3D data: BodyParts3D, © The Database Center for Life Science; knee ligaments, menisci, tonsils, palate and parotid glands from the Human Reference Atlas Visible Human Male model and female parts from its Visible Human Female model (HuBMAP / NIH); lung lobes built from the BodyParts3D chest; all CC BY 4.0; meshes simplified and recoloured. The female body shares the male skeleton, muscles and organs except its pelvis, reproductive organs, breasts, bladder, urethra and skin.

Female urethra at a glance

What it is
The female urethra is a short tube, about 4 cm long, that carries urine from the bladder to the outside.
Location
It runs downward and forward from the bladder neck, behind the pubic symphysis and embedded in the anterior vaginal wall, and opens in the vestibule between the clitoris and the vaginal orifice.
Function
It conducts urine during voiding. Its external sphincter of skeletal muscle gives voluntary control.
Body system
Urinary · single, midline structure · female body
FMA ID
FMA19669 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • It is about 4 cm long and 6 mm wide, much shorter than the male urethra (about 15–20 cm).
  • In females the external urethral sphincter has extra parts: the compressor urethrae and the urethrovaginal sphincter.
  • The paraurethral (Skene) glands open beside the external urethral orifice.
  • No source mesh exists for this structure; in the model it is a tube of these dimensions drawn from the bladder neck to the vestibule.

Clinical relevance

Its short length is one reason urinary tract infections are more common in women than in men.

Structures next to the female urethra

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

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Female urethra (FMA19669). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §25.2 Gross Anatomy of Urine Transport. 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.
  4. Browne K., Schlehlein H. 3D Reference Organ Set for United, Female (Visible Human Female). Human Reference Atlas 3D Reference Object Library, HuBMAP / NIH. Data from the NLM Visible Human Project. 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.