Squares and Rectangles

Squares and rectangles are flat shapes with four sides and four corners. Each corner is a right angle, which means 90 degrees. A rectangle can have two longer sides and two shorter sides, or all four sides can be equal. A square is a special rectangle where all four sides are the same length.

What Makes Them Special

A rectangle has opposite sides that are equal and parallel. Each pair of opposite sides has the same length; opposite sides do not share a corner. A square is like a rectangle, but all four sides are equal. Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square.

Finding the Area

The area is the space inside a shape. To find the area of a rectangle, you multiply the length by the width. For a square, you multiply one side by itself. For example, a square with sides of 4 inches has an area of 16 square inches. Area helps us measure floors, gardens, and pieces of paper.

Fun Facts

• Many book covers, phone screens, and TV screens have roughly rectangular outlines.
• Turning a rectangle does not change its side lengths or its right angles.
• A chessboard is made of 64 small squares arranged in a big square.

Did You Know?

The distance around the outside of a rectangle is called the perimeter, and you find it by adding up all four sides.