Label the Veins of the Upper Limb

All 13 veins on the diagram

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Near the skin 6

Digital veins They drain the fingers into the palmar venous arches.
Palmar venous arches The arches collect the finger veins. They feed the radial, ulnar and median antebrachial veins.
Median antebrachial vein It joins the basilic vein in the forearm.
Median cubital vein It links the cephalic and basilic veins. Blood is most often drawn here.
Cephalic vein A superficial vein; at the shoulder it joins the axillary vein.
Basilic vein It is a superficial vein. In the upper arm it goes deep to join the axillary vein.

Deep veins 3

Radial vein It runs beside the radius and the radial artery.
Ulnar vein It runs beside the ulna. It joins the radial vein at the elbow.
Brachial vein Formed where the radial and ulnar veins join at the elbow.

Shoulder and neck 4

Axillary vein The basilic, brachial and cephalic veins all drain into it.
Subclavian vein The axillary vein becomes the subclavian as it enters the chest.
Internal jugular vein It drains the head and joins the subclavian vein.
Brachiocephalic vein It carries blood on to the superior vena cava and the heart.

How this list was compiled: Every name and detail checked on 2026-09-29 against OpenStax Anatomy and Physiology 2e, section 20.5 Circulatory Pathways, Veins Draining the Upper Limbs and table 20.14 (digital veins, palmar venous arches, radial, ulnar, brachial, median antebrachial, basilic, median cubital, cephalic, axillary and subclavian veins; the subclavian, internal jugular and brachiocephalic veins leading to the superior vena cava), https://openstax.org/books/anatomy-and-physiology-2e/pages/20-5-circulatory-pathways, and against Wikipedia, text only: List of veins of the human body, Palmar venous arch, Median antebrachial vein and Palmar digital veins. Licence: own work

The drawing: Drawn for this site on 2026-10-05 by script, from points set by hand on a body of adult size. Our own drawing, nothing traced. The view (the right arm held out to the side, seen from the front, with the collarbone, ribs and arm bones shown faintly behind the veins) follows by eye the layout of one public domain plate in Henry Gray, Anatomy of the Human Body (20th US edition, 1918), fig. 576, The veins of the right axilla, viewed from in front (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gray576.png), and the veins near the skin were checked against fig. 574 of the same book, The superficial veins of the upper extremity (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gray574.png); the other veins are placed from the sources named for the labels. A plan, not to scale: the arm is drawn a little stouter than life and the upper arm a little long, the two palmar arches are drawn as one and sit nearer the wrist than in a hand, and the cephalic and basilic veins are drawn starting at the wrist, though they rise from the veins on the back of the hand. Licence: own work

How it works

This is the right arm from the front, held out to the side with the palm forward, so the thumb side is at the top. Dashed lines are the deep veins of the forearm and upper arm; the other veins are drawn solid.

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Follow the blood from the fingers

Blood leaves the fingers in the digital veins and gathers in the palm. From there it runs up the forearm in the deep radial and ulnar veins and the veins near the skin, crosses at the elbow, and climbs the arm in the cephalic, basilic and brachial veins. They meet in the armpit and carry on under the collarbone to the neck and chest.

Cephalic is on the thumb side and basilic on the little-finger side; the median cubital vein joins them across the elbow.

Questions and answers

What are the main veins of the arm?

Near the skin: the cephalic vein on the thumb side, the basilic vein on the little-finger side, and the median cubital vein joining them at the elbow. Deep: the radial and ulnar veins in the forearm and the brachial vein in the upper arm.

Which vein is used to draw blood?

Most often the median cubital vein, in the bend of the elbow. It lies near the skin and links the cephalic and basilic veins.

Where do the arm veins drain?

Into the axillary vein in the armpit, which becomes the subclavian vein under the collarbone. That joins the internal jugular to form the brachiocephalic vein, which leads to the superior vena cava and the heart.