Urethra
tube that connects the urinary bladder to the external urethral orifice
The urethra (pl.: urethras or urethrae) is the tube that transports urine from the bladder to the urethral meatus of the penis or vulva in placental mammals. In males, it also transports semen through the penis during ejaculation.
The external urethral sphincter is a striated muscle that allows voluntary control over urination. The internal urethral sphincter, formed by the involuntary smooth muscles lining the bladder neck and urethra, is innervated by the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system in males and females.
Structure
The urethra is a fibrous and muscular tube which connects the urinary bladder to the external urethral meatus. Its length differs between the sexes, because it passes through the penis in males.
Male
The human male urethra is on average 18 to 20 centimeters (7 to 8 inches) long and opens at the end of the external urethral meatus.
The urethra is divided into four parts in men, named after the location:
There is inadequate data for the typical length of the male urethra; however, a study of 109 men showed an average length of 22.3 cm (SD = 2.4 cm), ranging from 15 cm to 29 cm.
The urethra in male placental mammals is typically longer than in females.
Female
The human female urethra is about 4 cm long having 6 mm diameter,, extending from the internal urethral orifice of the bladder to the urethral meatus below the clitoris.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Urethra” is tube that connects the urinary bladder to the external urethral orifice. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Urethra, tube and connects, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9386. The Library of Congress control number is sh85141386. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Urethra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.