Plantar arch at a glance
- What it is
- The arterial arch of the sole formed mainly by the lateral plantar artery.
- Location
- It lies deep in the sole at the bases of the metatarsals, formed by the lateral plantar artery joined by the deep plantar branch of the dorsalis pedis artery, and gives plantar metatarsal arteries.
- Function
- It supplies the toes and deep structures of the foot.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA43944 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is the foot counterpart of the deep palmar arch.
- It lies between the third and fourth muscle layers of the sole, curving from the base of the fifth metatarsal to the first intermetatarsal space.
Structures next to the plantar arch
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Plantar venous arch of foot · cardiovascular
- Cuboid bone · skeletal
- Lateral plantar artery · cardiovascular
- Abductor hallucis · muscular
- Long plantar ligament · skeletal
- Lateral cuneiform bone · skeletal
- Dorsal venous arch of foot · cardiovascular
- Medial plantar artery · cardiovascular
- Medial cuneiform bone · skeletal
- Intermediate cuneiform bone · skeletal
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Plantar arch (FMA43944). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
- 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.