One is outside, one is inside
The vulva is everything you can see: mons, outer and inner labia, the clitoris and its hood, the urethral opening, the vaginal opening and the perineum. The vagina is the internal muscular canal running from that opening up to the cervix.
Calling the whole area 'the vagina' is so widespread that surveys repeatedly find fewer than half of women can label vulval anatomy correctly on a diagram. That isn't a trivia gap. It is the reason symptoms get described vaguely, and vague symptoms get dismissed.
The parts, briefly
- Mons pubis
- The soft pad over the pubic bone.
- Labia majora
- Outer lips — hair-bearing, protective.
- Labia minora
- Inner lips — nerve-rich, hugely variable in size, colour and symmetry.
- Clitoris
- The pleasure organ. The visible glans is the tip of a structure roughly 9–11cm long.
- Urethral opening
- Where urine exits — separate from and above the vaginal opening.
- Vaginal opening
- The entrance to the internal canal.
- Perineum
- The skin between the vaginal opening and the anus.
Why precision gets you better care
'It hurts down there' and 'I get a burning pain at the entrance of my vagina on the left, worst in the week before my period' lead to completely different appointments. The second gets examined, the first gets reassured.
Vulval skin conditions — lichen sclerosus, eczema, vestibulodynia — are routinely treated as recurrent thrush for years, partly because neither patient nor clinician has language precise enough to separate a skin problem from a discharge problem.
Self-check
Check yourself
1. Where does the urethral opening sit?
2. How much of the clitoris is visible externally?