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https://www.healthcentral.com/article/aging-can-take-major-toll-on-womens-tendons (mirror) claims that:

There are about 4,000 tendons throughout the body.

This claim is echoed by a fair amount of websites but I couldn't find any decently trustworthy source.

Where can I find the list of all tendons in the human body?

I have only been able to find a list of skeletal muscles of the human body so far. I'm surprised that there are 4000 tendons even though they are only ~640 muscles: most muscles that I am aware of are attached to fewer than six tendons (FYI: Why some muscles have more tendons than others?).

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe that article is exaggerating? $\endgroup$
    – kmm
    Commented May 27, 2019 at 21:54
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    $\begingroup$ @kmm maybe. Having a list would clarify it. $\endgroup$ Commented May 27, 2019 at 21:57
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    $\begingroup$ 640 muscles should be enough for anybody. $\endgroup$
    – dotancohen
    Commented May 28, 2019 at 14:26
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    $\begingroup$ @dotancohen mark my words: after a few decades, every muscular system will have at least 2~8 Gigamuscles, and many will have 16+. Technological advance will not be stopped $\endgroup$
    – VVayfarer
    Commented May 28, 2019 at 16:42

2 Answers 2

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Your best bet is the Terminologia Anatomica, which is the international standard for anatomical terminology.

The 1998 edition is freely available. It lists only a few named tendons though, which is consistent with my experience as an anatomist: very few tendons are named separately from the muscles to which they are connected. Central tendon of the diaphragm, conjoint tendon, and calcaneal tendon are a few.

Otherwise, it's just "tendon of biceps brachii" (which actually has 2 tendons at one end and one at the other).

4,000 seems like a too high number to me. 2x the 640ish muscles plus some extra for multi-headed muscles and those with internal tendons or aponeurotic tendons seems like a more reasonable estimate.

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The FMA lists 705 tendons, but note that it includes separate terms for left and right instances. As @kmm says, many of these simply shadow the list of skeletal muscles (and is likely incomplete).

You can browse the list on OLS, or if you want to extract a table you can query this SPARQL endpoint, just type in the query here:

SELECT DISTINCT ?x ?v0 WHERE {
   ?x <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#subClassOf>+ 
       <http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/FMA_9721> . 
   OPTIONAL {?x <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#label> ?v0}}
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