popliteal vein
The popliteal vein course runs alongside the popliteal artery but carries the blood from the knee joint and muscles in the thigh and calf back to the heart. Its origin is defined by the junction of the posterior tibial vein and anterior tibial vein. It drains the peroneal vein before reaching the knee joint and turns into the femoral vein when leaving the adductor canal (also known as Hunter's canal). The popliteal artery extends from the femoral artery behind the popliteal fossa which is the space behind the knee. [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.
What the popliteal vein is
The popliteal vein course runs alongside the popliteal artery but carries the blood from the knee joint and muscles in the thigh and calf back to the heart. Its origin is defined by the junction of the posterior tibial vein and anterior tibial vein. It drains the peroneal vein before reaching the knee joint and turns into the femoral vein when leaving the adductor canal (also known as Hunter's canal). The popliteal artery extends from the femoral artery behind the popliteal fossa which is the space behind the knee. [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a vein at the organ scale in the human body.
Where the popliteal vein is
It sits within the cardiovascular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What the popliteal vein connects to
The atlas records 10 typed relationships for it, across 3 kinds of connection. a kind of vein.
Supply and innervation
Venous drainage: femoral vein, anterior tibial vein, gastrocnemius vein, posterior tibial vein, small saphenous vein and soleal vein, and 2 more.
Also called
Also recorded as vena poplitea. Searching any of those names reaches this page.
Source
Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001544, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.
- A kind of: vein.
- drains to: femoral vein, anterior tibial vein, gastrocnemius vein, posterior tibial vein, small saphenous vein and soleal vein, and 2 more.
- overlaps: knee.
Questions
Where is the popliteal vein?
It sits within the cardiovascular system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.
What does the popliteal vein connect to?
A kind of: vein.
Is the popliteal vein the same in other species?
Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.