Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the image quality and accuracy of axial vs coronal contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance cholangiography (CE-MRC) for assessing bile duct anatomy.Methods: Data from 313 healthy donors who underwent axial and coronal CE-MRC before liver donation were retrospectively analyzed. Motion artifacts and bile duct visibility were assessed using 4-point scales, with scores ≥3 considered interpretable. The sensitivity and specificity of axial and coronal CE-MRC for diagnosing anatomic variations were compared, as were the proportions of correctly categorized biliary anatomic types.Results: Axial CE-MRC provided better image quality than coronal CE-MRC in terms of both motion artifacts (3.83 vs 3.17; P < .001) and duct visibility (3.50 vs 3.17, P < .001), resulting in more interpretable images with axial than coronal CE-MRC (92.7% vs 82.1%; P < .001). Among 249 donors with interpretable images, coronal CE-MRC performed significantly better for identifying duct anatomic variation than axial CE-MRC (sensitivity, 96.9% vs 80.4%, P < .001; specificity, 100% vs 96.7%, P = .025). Coronal CE-MRC was significantly better than axial CE-MRC at correctly categorizing anatomic types of right posterior hepatic duct into left hepatic duct and accessory duct with incomplete right hepatic duct.Conclusions: With interpretable image quality, coronal CE-MRC performed better than axial CE-MRC for evaluating bile duct anatomy.