How to work out an area - BBC Bitesize (2024)

FAQs

How do you calculate the area? ›

To work out the area of a square or rectangle, multiply its height by its width. If the height and width are in cm, the area is shown in cm². If the height and width are in m, the area is shown in m². A square with sides of 5 m has an area of 25 m², because 5 × 5 = 25.

Area is the amount of space taken up by a 2D shape. 2D shapes are completely flat. To work out the area of a square or a rectangle, multiply its height by its width.

To calculate the area of a plot, these formulas are to be followed: Rectangular or Square Land Parcel: Measure the length (L) and width (W) of the land in feet or metres. Multiply the length by the width to find the area: Area = L × W square units (e.g., square feet or square metres).

Surface area is total area on the surface of a three-dimensional shape. To find the surface area of a cuboid which has 6 rectangular faces, add the areas of all 6 faces. Or, you can label the length (l), width (w), and height (h) of the cuboid and use the formula: surface area (SA)=2lw+2lh+2hw.

It is calculated using the formula, Perimeter of Rectangle = 2 (Length + Width). The area of a rectangle is the region covered within its boundary and this can be calculated using the formula, area of rectangle = length × width.

Area is a measure of how much space there is inside a shape. Calculating the area of a shape or surface can be useful in everyday life – for example you may need to know how much paint to buy to cover a wall or how much grass seed you need to sow a lawn.

The area rule states that the area of any triangle is equal to half the product of the lengths of the two sides of the triangle multiplied by the sine of the angle included by the two sides.

The area under a curve between two points is found out by doing a definite integral between the two points. To find the area under the curve y = f(x) between x = a & x = b, integrate y = f(x) between the limits of a and b. This area can be calculated using integration with given limits.

The basic formula for calculating area is Length times Width (LxW). If you are estimating the area for a rectangle you'll always use LxW. If you are calculating the area for a square you can multiply the length of one Side times itself, or (S²). The illustration above shows a room 12′ wide by 20′ long.

How to find the total area? ›

To find the area of a rectangle or a square you need to multiply the length and the width of a rectangle or a square. Area, A, is x times y.

Simply take a foot-long measurement of both the length and breadth. After that, to calculate the size of the area, multiply the length by the breadth in feet. 144 square inches equals one square foot. To prevent time-consuming hand calculations and obtain precise answers, you can also use a digital land calculator.

An example of an area problem is if one needed to determine the area of a rectangular swimming pool when its length and width are known. If the length is 10m and the width is 5m, the formula can be used to find that its area is 50 square meters.