Rectangle
From Latin: rectus "right" + angle
A 4-sided polygon
with opposite sides parallel and all internal angles are 90°
Try this Drag the orange dots on each vertex
to reshape the rectangle.
(If there is no image below, see support page.)
The rectangle, like the
square,
is one of the most commonly known
quadrilaterals. It is defined as having opposite sides parallel
and its corner angles all right angles (90°)
From this it follows that the opposite sides will always be the same length. Adjust the rectangle above and satisfy yourself that this is so.
Since it is also a specific case of a
parallelogram
, like a parallelogram, its diagonals
bisect each other. In a rectangle the diagonals are the same length.
A rectangle can be classified in more than one way, for example a square is a special case of a rectangle.
It is also a special case of a parallelogram (but where the angles are fixed at 90°)
See also:
Area of a rectangle
Perimeter of a rectangle
Golden rectangle
Related polygon topics
General
Types of polygon
Area of various polygon types
Perimeter of various polygon types
Angles associated with polygons
Named polygons
(C) 2007 Copyright John Page
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