Properties and Area of a Rectangle

Rectangles
For a normal 4th grader, a rectangle would mean a plane figure that has four sides. However, more precisely in geometry, a branch of math, a rectangle is a special type of a quadrilateral that has 4 right angles. It would look as shown in the picture below:

Properties of a rectangle:
1. It has four sides.
2. It has four angle and all the angles are right angles.
3. It has four vertices.
4. Each pair of opposite sides are congruent.
5. Opposite sides are parallel.
Examples of rectangles:
1. Top of a book.
2. Face of a cuboid.
3. Top of a table.
4. Front of a cupboard.
5. Etc.

The Area of the Rectangle:
The Formula for the Area of a Rectangle is as follows:
A = l * w
Where,
A = area of the rectangle,
L = length of the rectangle
W = width of the rectangle.

It is customary to denote the longer side of the rectangle as length and the shorter side as width. Another custom is to denote the horizontal sides as the length and the vertical sides as the width of the rectangle. It is shown in the picture below.

Let us now try to understand how to calculate the area of a rectangle with the help of a sample problem question.

Example 1: Find area rectangle from the figure shown below:

Solution:
From our formula for area of a rectangle we know that,
Area = A = L * W
For this problem,
L = length = 5 units and
W = width = 3 units
Therefore substituting these values of L and W into the above formula for area of the rectangle we have,
A = 5 * 3 = 15 sq units <- answer="" p="">
If instead of being given the measures of length and width, we are given the co ordinates of the vertices of the rectangle then its area can be found out as follows:

Consider a rectangle with the vertices at A (x1,y1),B  (x2,y2), C (x3,y3) and D (x4,y4) taken in clock wise direction. Therefore we know that if AB is the length of the rectangle then BC would be the width of the rectangle. The distance AB can be found using the distance formula as follows:

Length = L = AB = √[(x2-x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2]

Similarly the distance BC can also be found using the distance formula as follows:

Width = W = BC = √[(x3-x2)^2 + (y3-y2)^2]

Both the above can be now used to find the area of the rectangle as follows:

A = L * W.

Sample problem:
Find the area of a rectangle having vertices at (3,7), (0,7), (3,-2) and (0,-2)

Solution:
First let us sketch a graph of the said rectangle.

From the picture we see that
Length = L = 3-0 = 3 and
Width = W = 7 – (-2) = 7+2 = 9

Therefore,
Area of rectangle = 3 * 9 = 27 sq units.