Water Content of Human Body Tissues

About This Dataset

The proportion of water, by weight, in different human tissues and organs, based on the classic Mitchell reference data. The lungs are the wettest major organ at 83% water, while even bones are nearly one-third water.

✨ AI Insight

The human body is famously water-rich, but the distribution is uneven. The lungs top the list at 83%, followed by a tight pair of muscle and kidneys at 79% and another pair, the brain and heart, at 73% - meaning the most metabolically active organs are all roughly three-quarters water. Skin drops to 64%, and the outlier is bone at just 31%, less than half the water content of soft tissue because its mass is dominated by mineral crystal. The clustering into 83 / 79 / 73 bands shows how tissue function tracks water content: gas-exchange and filtration organs hold the most, structural bone the least. Overall these figures explain why total body water averages around 60%.

Source: USGS Water Science School (Mitchell et al.)

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Lungs leads with 83 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 69 · median: 73.

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Gap in All Time: Lungs is 2.7× larger than Bones.