How To Calculate Area

What is area?

Area tells us the size of a shape or figure. It tells us the size of squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, other polygons, or any enclosed figure.

In the real world it tells us the size of pieces of paper, computer screens, rooms in houses, baseball fields, towns, cities, countries, and so on. Knowing the area can be very important. Think of getting a new carpet fitted in a room in your home. Knowing the area of the room will help make sure that the carpet you buy is big enough without having too much left over.

Calculating Area

Area is measured in squares (or square units).

How many squares are in this rectangle?

We can count the squares or we can take the length and width and use multiplication. The rectangle above has an area of 15 square units.

Examples of calculating the area of a rectangle

	Area = Length x Width Area = 3 x 2 = 6 square units
	Area = Length x Width Area = 8 x 6 = 48 square units
	Area = Length x Width Area = 9 x 5 = 45 square units

Units for measuring area

We measure area using squares. We use different sizes of squares depending on how big or small an area is.

We could use small squares to measure large areas. The only problem with this is that we would end up having to use very big numbers. For example, a field might be measured at 5,000,000,000 square millimeters when 5,000 square meters would be a much easier size to say, write, and visualize.

You will probably hear more units for measuring area; square inches, square feet, square yards, square miles, acres, hectares are all units used for measuring area.

More Examples of Calculating Area of Rectangles

	Area = Length x Width Area = 9 mm x 4 mm = 36 mm2
	Area = Length x Width Area = 7 cm x 6 cm = 42 cm2
	Area = Length x Width Area = 8 m x 2 m = 16 m2
	Area = Length x Width Area = 7 km x 5 km = 35 km2

Area of a Square

The length and width of a square are the same so we just need to multiply the length by the length.

Area = Length x Length Area = 6 cm x 6 cm = 36 cm2

Calculating Area Worksheets

Print out the worksheets listed below and use them for practice when learning how to calculate the area of squares and rectangles.

• Calculating Areas - Rectangles and Squares
• Calculating Areas - Rectangles
• Calculating Areas - Rectangles
• Calculating Areas - Rectangular Shapes
• Calculating Areas e.g. of Triangles
• Area of a Circle
• Calculating Surface Areas e.g. of Rectangular Prisms

You will find more printable geometry worksheets here.