Area is the
measure of a
region's size on a
surface. The area of a plane region or plane area refers to the area of a
shape or
planar lamina, while surface area refers to the area of an
open surface or the
boundary of a
three-dimensional object. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of
paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat.[1] It is the two-dimensional analogue of the
length of a
curve (a one-dimensional concept) or the
volume of a solid (a three-dimensional concept).
Two different regions may have the same area (as in
squaring the circle); by
synecdoche, "area" sometimes is used to refer to the region, as in a "
polygonal area".
The area of a shape can be measured by comparing the shape to
squares of a fixed size.[2] In the
International System of Units (SI), the standard unit of area is the
square metre (written as m2), which is the area of a square whose sides are one
metre long.[3] A shape with an area of three square metres would have the same area as three such squares. In
mathematics, the
unit square is defined to have area one, and the area of any other shape or surface is a
dimensionlessreal number.
For a solid shape such as a
sphere, cone, or cylinder, the area of its boundary surface is called the
surface area.[6][7][8] Formulas for the surface areas of simple shapes were computed by the
ancient Greeks, but computing the surface area of a more complicated shape usually requires
multivariable calculus.
Area plays an important role in modern mathematics. In addition to its obvious importance in
geometry and calculus, area is related to the definition of
determinants in
linear algebra, and is a basic property of surfaces in
differential geometry.[9] In
analysis, the area of a subset of the plane is defined using
Lebesgue measure,[10] though not every subset is measurable.[11] In general, area in higher mathematics is seen as a special case of volume for two-dimensional regions.[6]
Area can be defined through the use of axioms, defining it as a function of a collection of certain plane figures to the set of real numbers. It can be proved that such a function exists.
An approach to defining what is meant by "area" is through
axioms. "Area" can be defined as a function from a collection M of a special kinds of plane figures (termed measurable sets) to the set of real numbers, which satisfies the following properties:[12]
For all S in M, a(S) ≥ 0.
If S and T are in M then so are S ∪ T and S ∩ T, and also a(S∪T) = a(S) + a(T) − a(S ∩ T).
If S and T are in M with S ⊆ T then T − S is in M and a(T−S) = a(T) − a(S).
If a set S is in M and S is congruent to T then T is also in M and a(S) = a(T).
Every rectangle R is in M. If the rectangle has length h and breadth k then a(R) = hk.
Let Q be a set enclosed between two step regions S and T. A step region is formed from a finite union of adjacent rectangles resting on a common base, i.e. S ⊆ Q ⊆ T. If there is a unique number c such that a(S) ≤ c ≤ a(T) for all such step regions S and T, then a(Q) = c.
It can be proved that such an area function actually exists.[13]
Every
unit of length has a corresponding unit of area, namely the area of a square with the given side length. Thus areas can be measured in
square metres (m2), square centimetres (cm2), square millimetres (mm2),
square kilometres (km2),
square feet (ft2),
square yards (yd2),
square miles (mi2), and so forth.[14] Algebraically, these units can be thought of as the
squares of the corresponding length units.
The SI unit of area is the square metre, which is considered an
SI derived unit.[3]
Conversions
Although there are 10 mm in 1 cm, there are 100 mm2 in 1 cm2.
Calculation of the area of a square whose length and width are 1 metre would be:
1 metre × 1 metre = 1 m2
and so, a rectangle with different sides (say length of 3 metres and width of 2 metres) would have an area in square units that can be calculated as:
3 metres × 2 metres = 6 m2. This is equivalent to 6 million square millimetres. Other useful conversions are:
Other uncommon metric units of area include the
tetrad, the
hectad, and the
myriad.
The
acre is also commonly used to measure land areas, where
1 acre = 4,840 square yards = 43,560 square feet.
An acre is approximately 40% of a hectare.
On the atomic scale, area is measured in units of
barns, such that:[14]
1 barn = 10−28 square meters.
The barn is commonly used in describing the cross-sectional area of interaction in
nuclear physics.[14]
In
South Asia (mainly Indians), although the countries use SI units as official, many South Asians still use traditional units. Each administrative division has its own area unit, some of them have same names, but with different values. There's no official consensus about the traditional units values. Thus, the conversions between the SI units and the traditional units may have different results, depending on what reference that has been used. [15][16][17][18]
Some traditional South Asian units that have fixed value:
In the 5th century BCE,
Hippocrates of Chios was the first to show that the area of a disk (the region enclosed by a circle) is proportional to the square of its diameter, as part of his
quadrature of the
lune of Hippocrates,[19] but did not identify the
constant of proportionality.
Eudoxus of Cnidus, also in the 5th century BCE, also found that the area of a disk is proportional to its radius squared.[20]
Subsequently, Book I of
Euclid's Elements dealt with equality of areas between two-dimensional figures. The mathematician
Archimedes used the tools of
Euclidean geometry to show that the area inside a circle is equal to that of a
right triangle whose base has the length of the circle's circumference and whose height equals the circle's radius, in his book Measurement of a Circle. (The circumference is 2πr, and the area of a triangle is half the base times the height, yielding the area πr2 for the disk.) Archimedes approximated the value of π (and hence the area of a unit-radius circle) with
his doubling method, in which he inscribed a regular triangle in a circle and noted its area, then doubled the number of sides to give a regular
hexagon, then repeatedly doubled the number of sides as the polygon's area got closer and closer to that of the circle (and did the same with
circumscribed polygons).
Heron of Alexandria found what is known as
Heron's formula for the area of a triangle in terms of its sides, and a proof can be found in his book, Metrica, written around 60 CE. It has been suggested that
Archimedes knew the formula over two centuries earlier,[21] and since Metrica is a collection of the mathematical knowledge available in the ancient world, it is possible that the formula predates the reference given in that work.[22] In 300 BCE Greek mathematician
Euclid proved that the area of a triangle is half that of a parallelogram with the same base and height in his book Elements of Geometry.[23]
A formula equivalent to Heron's was discovered by the Chinese independently of the Greeks. It was published in 1247 in Shushu Jiuzhang ("
Mathematical Treatise in Nine Sections"), written by
Qin Jiushao.
The development of
integral calculus in the late 17th century provided tools that could subsequently be used for computing more complicated areas, such as the area of an
ellipse and the
surface areas of various curved three-dimensional objects.
where when i=n-1, then i+1 is expressed as
modulusn and so refers to 0.
Rectangles
The area of this rectangle is lw.
The most basic area formula is the formula for the area of a
rectangle. Given a rectangle with length l and width w, the formula for the area is:[2]
A = lw (rectangle).
That is, the area of the rectangle is the length multiplied by the width. As a special case, as l = w in the case of a square, the area of a square with side length s is given by the formula:[6][2]
A = s2 (square).
The formula for the area of a rectangle follows directly from the basic properties of area, and is sometimes taken as a
definition or
axiom. On the other hand, if
geometry is developed before
arithmetic, this formula can be used to define
multiplication of
real numbers.
A parallelogram can be cut up and re-arranged to form a rectangle.
Most other simple formulas for area follow from the method of
dissection.
This involves cutting a shape into pieces, whose areas must
sum to the area of the original shape.
For an example, any
parallelogram can be subdivided into a
trapezoid and a
right triangle, as shown in figure to the left. If the triangle is moved to the other side of the trapezoid, then the resulting figure is a rectangle. It follows that the area of the parallelogram is the same as the area of the rectangle:[2]
A = bh (parallelogram).
A parallelogram split into two equal triangles
However, the same parallelogram can also be cut along a
diagonal into two
congruent triangles, as shown in the figure to the right. It follows that the area of each
triangle is half the area of the parallelogram:[2]
(triangle).
Similar arguments can be used to find area formulas for the
trapezoid[25] as well as more complicated
polygons.[26]
Area of curved shapes
Circles
A circle can be divided into
sectors which rearrange to form an approximate
parallelogram.
The formula for the area of a
circle (more properly called the area enclosed by a circle or the area of a
disk) is based on a similar method. Given a circle of radius r, it is possible to partition the circle into
sectors, as shown in the figure to the right. Each sector is approximately triangular in shape, and the sectors can be rearranged to form an approximate parallelogram. The height of this parallelogram is r, and the width is half the
circumference of the circle, or πr. Thus, the total area of the circle is πr2:[2]
A = πr2 (circle).
Though the dissection used in this formula is only approximate, the error becomes smaller and smaller as the circle is partitioned into more and more sectors. The
limit of the areas of the approximate parallelograms is exactly πr2, which is the area of the circle.[27]
This argument is actually a simple application of the ideas of
calculus. In ancient times, the
method of exhaustion was used in a similar way to find the area of the circle, and this method is now recognized as a precursor to
integral calculus. Using modern methods, the area of a circle can be computed using a
definite integral:
The formula for the area enclosed by an
ellipse is related to the formula of a circle; for an ellipse with
semi-major and
semi-minor axes x and y the formula is:[2]
Archimedes showed that the surface area of a
sphere is exactly four times the area of a flat
disk of the same radius, and the volume enclosed by the sphere is exactly 2/3 of the volume of a
cylinder of the same height and radius.
Most basic formulas for
surface area can be obtained by cutting surfaces and flattening them out (see:
developable surfaces). For example, if the side surface of a
cylinder (or any
prism) is cut lengthwise, the surface can be flattened out into a rectangle. Similarly, if a cut is made along the side of a
cone, the side surface can be flattened out into a sector of a circle, and the resulting area computed.
The formula for the surface area of a
sphere is more difficult to derive: because a sphere has nonzero
Gaussian curvature, it cannot be flattened out. The formula for the surface area of a sphere was first obtained by
Archimedes in his work On the Sphere and Cylinder. The formula is:[7]
A = 4πr2 (sphere),
where r is the radius of the sphere. As with the formula for the area of a circle, any derivation of this formula inherently uses methods similar to
calculus.
General formulas
Areas of 2-dimensional figures
Triangle area
A
triangle: (where B is any side, and h is the distance from the line on which B lies to the other vertex of the triangle). This formula can be used if the height h is known. If the lengths of the three sides are known then Heron's formula can be used: where a, b, c are the sides of the triangle, and is half of its perimeter.[2] If an angle and its two included sides are given, the area is where C is the given angle and a and b are its included sides.[2] If the triangle is graphed on a coordinate plane, a matrix can be used and is simplified to the absolute value of . This formula is also known as the
shoelace formula and is an easy way to solve for the area of a coordinate triangle by substituting the 3 points (x1,y1), (x2,y2), and (x3,y3). The shoelace formula can also be used to find the areas of other polygons when their vertices are known. Another approach for a coordinate triangle is to use
calculus to find the area.
A
simple polygon constructed on a grid of equal-distanced points (i.e., points with
integer coordinates) such that all the polygon's vertices are grid points: , where i is the number of grid points inside the polygon and b is the number of boundary points. This result is known as
Pick's theorem.[28]
Area in calculus
Integration can be thought of as measuring the area under a curve, defined by f(x), between two points (here a and b).The area between two graphs can be evaluated by calculating the difference between the integrals of the two functions
The area between a positive-valued curve and the horizontal axis, measured between two values a and b (b is defined as the larger of the two values) on the horizontal axis, is given by the integral from a to b of the function that represents the curve:[6]
The area between the
graphs of two functions is
equal to the
integral of one
function, f(x),
minus the integral of the other function, g(x):
To find the bounded area between two
quadratic functions, we subtract one from the other to write the difference as
where f(x) is the quadratic upper bound and g(x) is the quadratic lower bound. Define the
discriminant of f(x)-g(x) as
By simplifying the integral formula between the graphs of two functions (as given in the section above) and using
Vieta's formula, we can obtain[29][30]
The above remains valid if one of the bounding functions is linear instead of quadratic.
Surface area of 3-dimensional figures
Cone:[31], where r is the radius of the circular base, and h is the height. That can also be rewritten as [31] or where r is the radius and l is the slant height of the cone. is the base area while is the lateral surface area of the cone.[31]
Cylinder: , where r is the radius of a base and h is the height. The can also be rewritten as , where d is the diameter.
Prism: , where B is the area of a base, P is the perimeter of a base, and h is the height of the prism.
pyramid: , where B is the area of the base, P is the perimeter of the base, and L is the length of the slant.
Rectangular prism: , where is the length, w is the width, and h is the height.
General formula for surface area
The general formula for the surface area of the graph of a continuously differentiable function where and is a region in the xy-plane with the smooth boundary:
An even more general formula for the area of the graph of a
parametric surface in the vector form where is a continuously differentiable vector function of is:[9]
The above calculations show how to find the areas of many common
shapes.
The areas of irregular (and thus arbitrary) polygons can be calculated using the "
Surveyor's formula" (shoelace formula).[27]
Relation of area to perimeter
The
isoperimetric inequality states that, for a closed curve of length L (so the region it encloses has
perimeterL) and for area A of the region that it encloses,
and equality holds if and only if the curve is a
circle. Thus a circle has the largest area of any closed figure with a given perimeter.
At the other extreme, a figure with given perimeter L could have an arbitrarily small area, as illustrated by a
rhombus that is "tipped over" arbitrarily far so that two of its
angles are arbitrarily close to 0° and the other two are arbitrarily close to 180°.
For a circle, the ratio of the area to the
circumference (the term for the perimeter of a circle) equals half the
radiusr. This can be seen from the area formula πr2 and the circumference formula 2πr.
The area of a
regular polygon is half its perimeter times the
apothem (where the apothem is the distance from the center to the nearest point on any side).
Fractals
Doubling the edge lengths of a polygon multiplies its area by four, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old side length) raised to the power of two (the dimension of the space the polygon resides in). But if the one-dimensional lengths of a
fractal drawn in two dimensions are all doubled, the spatial content of the fractal scales by a power of two that is not necessarily an integer. This power is called the
fractal dimension of the fractal.
[32]
There are an infinitude of lines that bisect the area of a triangle. Three of them are the
medians of the triangle (which connect the sides' midpoints with the opposite vertices), and these are
concurrent at the triangle's
centroid; indeed, they are the only area bisectors that go through the centroid. Any line through a triangle that splits both the triangle's area and its perimeter in half goes through the triangle's incenter (the center of its
incircle). There are either one, two, or three of these for any given triangle.
Any line through the midpoint of a parallelogram bisects the area.
All area bisectors of a circle or other ellipse go through the center, and any
chords through the center bisect the area. In the case of a circle they are the diameters of the circle.
Optimization
Given a wire contour, the surface of least area spanning ("filling") it is a
minimal surface. Familiar examples include
soap bubbles.
The circle has the largest area of any two-dimensional object having the same perimeter.
A
cyclic polygon (one inscribed in a circle) has the largest area of any polygon with a given number of sides of the same lengths.
A version of the
isoperimetric inequality for triangles states that the triangle of greatest area among all those with a given perimeter is
equilateral.[34]
The triangle of largest area of all those inscribed in a given circle is equilateral; and the triangle of smallest area of all those circumscribed around a given circle is equilateral.[35]
The ratio of the area of the incircle to the area of an equilateral triangle, , is larger than that of any non-equilateral triangle.[36]
The ratio of the area to the square of the perimeter of an equilateral triangle, is larger than that for any other triangle.[34]
See also
Brahmagupta quadrilateral, a cyclic quadrilateral with integer sides, integer diagonals, and integer area.
^
abChakerian, G.D. (1979) "A Distorted View of Geometry." Ch. 7 in Mathematical Plums. R. Honsberger (ed.). Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, p. 147.
^Dorrie, Heinrich (1965), 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics, Dover Publ., pp. 379–380.