All parts of the brain › The lobes › The skull

Which skull bone covers each lobe of the brain?

The frontal bone covers the frontal lobes, the two parietal bones the parietal lobes, the two temporal bones lie beside the temporal lobes, and the occipital bone covers the occipital lobes and, below them, the cerebellum. Under the brain the sphenoid and ethmoid bones form the floor below its front; the sphenoid also holds the pituitary gland. [1][2][3][4]

The 3D brain needs JavaScript. The list below still says which bone covers each lobe.

Lit: the four lobes and the cerebellum, under the skull bones drawn see-through.

Slice

The skull opens switched on and see-through. Tap a bone, on the model or in the list, to light it with the parts under it; . The Skull switch hides the bones; a Side, Top or Front slice cuts through bone and brain together.

Lit: the frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes and the cerebellum, each in its own colour, with the eight bones of the brain case drawn see-through over them. Tap a bone (or its name below) to light it with the parts it covers; the Skull switch hides the bones. [5]

The lobes under the skull

Tap a bone to see where it is, what it covers and what it holds.

The eight bones of the brain case, and what each covers

(one) — The frontal bone forms the forehead and, with its orbital plates, the floor of the anterior cranial fossa, the front bowl of the skull that holds the frontal lobes. [1][6][7] Lit with it: frontal lobe.
(a pair) — The two parietal bones, joined down the midline at the sagittal suture, form the roof and upper sides of the skull; the parietal lobe takes its name from them. [8][9][1] Lit with it: parietal lobe.
(a pair) — Each temporal bone sits at the side and base of the skull, beside the temporal lobe, and helps form the middle cranial fossa the temporal lobe rests in; it also houses the middle and inner ear. [3][1] Lit with it: temporal lobe.
(one) — The occipital bone lies over the occipital lobes at the back of the head; its inner surface forms the floor of the posterior cranial fossa, which holds the cerebellum and the brainstem. [2][6][1] Lit with it: occipital lobe and cerebellum.
(one) — Its greater wings form the front of the floor of the middle cranial fossa, under the front of each temporal lobe; the upper surface of its lesser wings forms the back of the floor under the frontal lobes; the sella turcica in its body holds the pituitary gland. [1][4] Lit with it: temporal lobe, orbitofrontal cortex and pituitary gland.
(one) — Its cribriform plate, a small sieve-like strip in the middle of the anterior cranial fossa, roofs the nose and carries the olfactory bulbs, which lie on the underside (orbital surface) of the frontal lobes; small smell nerves pass up through its holes. [1][10][11][12] Lit with it: orbitofrontal cortex.

Which colour is which part

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green
orange
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brown

How the skull fits round the brain

The brain case is made of eight bones: the paired parietal and temporal bones and the single frontal, occipital, sphenoid and ethmoid bones. [1]
From the inside, the floor of the skull steps down in three bowls: the shallow anterior cranial fossa holds the frontal lobes, the middle cranial fossa the temporal lobes, and the deepest, the posterior cranial fossa, the cerebellum and the brainstem. [1][6]
The bones meet at sutures: the coronal suture joins the frontal bone to the two parietal bones, the sagittal suture joins the two parietal bones down the midline, the lambdoid suture joins the occipital bone to the parietal and temporal bones, and the squamous suture joins each temporal bone to the parietal bone above it. [1]
The lobes are divided by grooves in the brain, not by the sutures of the skull: the frontal lobe ends at the central sulcus, while the frontal bone ends at the coronal suture, so a lobe and the bone it is named after do not end in the same place. [13][1]

The lobes themselves, each lit in its own colour: the lobes of the brain. Each lobe’s own page: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe and occipital lobe.

How much of each lobe lies under each bone, on this model

For every patch of a part’s outer surface (the left one of a pair; patches buried in a groove or under another part left out), a line is run straight out from the surface; the first bone it meets is the bone over that patch. Shares are of the outer surface area, measured on this one model [5]; shares under 1 % are left out.

Part	Bones over its outer surface
Frontal lobe	frontal bone 56 %, parietal bones 40 %, sphenoid bone 4 %
Parietal lobe	parietal bones 96 %, occipital bone 4 %
Temporal lobe	parietal bones 41 %, temporal bones 37 %, sphenoid bone 17 %, occipital bone 5 %, frontal bone 1 %
Occipital lobe	occipital bone 95 %, parietal bones 5 %
Cerebellum	occipital bone 75 %, temporal bones 19 %, an opening, no bone 5 %, sphenoid bone 1 %

On this model the bone a lobe is named after is not the only one over it. 40 % of the frontal lobe’s outer surface lies under the parietal bones: the frontal lobe runs back to the central sulcus, but the frontal bone stops at the coronal suture, in front of it. And 41 % of the temporal lobe’s outer surface (against 37 % under the temporal bones) lies under the parietal bones, above the squamous suture where the two bones meet on the side of the head. [13][1]

The skull and brain here are BodyParts3D’s models of one adult male body, in one frame; the bones are thinned for the web to half their points. Real skulls and brains vary, and the sutures fall in slightly different places from one head to the next, so the shares in the table describe this one model. [5]

Sources

Facts describe anatomy only. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain and skull (credits and licence); real heads vary in size and shape, so its measurements describe one model, not anyone’s head.