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Hard palate: anatomy, location and function

The hard palate is the bony front part of the palate, which forms the roof of the mouth and the floor of the nasal cavity. It is immobile: it gives the front of the roof of the mouth a rigid surface, and the soft palate is anchored to its back edge by the palatine aponeurosis.

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Highlighted in the model: Hard palate. 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 default body is an adult male.

Hard palate at a glance

Also called
Bony palate
What it is
The hard palate is the bony front part of the palate, which forms the roof of the mouth and the floor of the nasal cavity.
Location
It is made by the palatine processes of the two maxillae in front and the horizontal plates of the two palatine bones behind, covered by mucosa. The soft palate continues from its back edge.
Function
It is immobile: it gives the front of the roof of the mouth a rigid surface, and the soft palate is anchored to its back edge by the palatine aponeurosis.
Body system
Digestive · single, midline structure
FMA ID
FMA55023 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)

Key facts

  • The incisive canal, in the midline behind the front teeth, carries the nasopalatine nerve and descending palatine artery.
  • The greater palatine foramen, medial to the third molar, carries the greater palatine nerve and vessels; the lesser palatine foramina carry the lesser palatine nerves.
  • Its mucosa is supplied by the greater palatine and nasopalatine nerves, branches of the maxillary nerve (CN V2).

Clinical relevance

A cleft palate forms when the palatal shelves fail to fuse in the midline; it occurs in about 1 in 1,000 births and can cause feeding difficulty, ear infections and speech problems.

Structures next to the hard palate

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

References

  1. Foundational Model of Anatomy: Hard palate (FMA55023). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
  2. TeachMeAnatomy. The Palate.
  3. Lecturio. Oral Cavity: Palate.
  4. OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §23.1 Overview of the Digestive System. Rice University, 2022.
  5. 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.
  6. Browne K., Schlehlein H. (2026). 3D Reference Organ Set for Male, v1.10 (Visible Human Male). Human Reference Atlas 3D Reference Object Library, HuBMAP / NIH. 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.