Perimeter and area of rectangles
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What you will learn
By the end, you can find the perimeter and the area of any rectangle and say which unit each one needs.
In a building game, Emil marks out a garden 6 tiles long and 4 tiles wide. He needs fence pieces all the way round the edge, and grass tiles to cover the inside. Two different questions: how far round, and how much inside?
Read the explanation
Perimeter is the distance all the way around the edge, so you add the four sides. Area is the space inside, counted in squares, so you multiply length by width. A 6 by 4 rectangle needs 20 fence pieces around it and has 24 squares inside.
- Perimeter = 2 × (length + width). It is a length, so it uses cm or m.
- Area = length × width. It counts squares, so it uses cm² or m².
- A square has four equal sides, so its perimeter is 4 × one side.