Skin at a glance
- What it is
- The skin is the body's largest organ, forming a protective covering.
- Location
- It covers the entire external body surface, continuous with mucous membranes at the orifices.
- Function
- It protects against injury, microbes and water loss, regulates temperature, produces vitamin D and senses touch, pain and temperature.
- Body system
- Skin · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA7163 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It has two layers, the epidermis and the dermis; the hypodermis (subcutaneous tissue) beneath anchors it but is not strictly part of the skin.
- The epidermis is keratinised stratified squamous epithelium with no blood vessels of its own.
- It makes up about 15 percent of body weight and has a surface area of roughly 1.5–2 square metres in adults.
Clinical relevance
Sun exposure increases the risk of melanoma and other skin cancers.
Structures next to the skin
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Prostate · reproductive
- Calcaneal branches of posterior tibial artery · cardiovascular
- Urinary bladder · urinary
- Dorsal artery of penis · cardiovascular
- Puborectalis · muscular
- Urethra · urinary
- Corpus cavernosum of penis · reproductive
- Seminal vesicle · reproductive
- Corpus spongiosum of penis · reproductive
- Deep dorsal vein of penis · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Skin (FMA7163). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §5.1 Layers of the Skin. 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.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.