Area of a Trapezoid

The area of a polygon is the number of square units inside that polygon. Area is 2-
dimensional like a carpet or an area rug.

A trapezoid is a 4-sided figure with one pair of parallel sides. For example,
in the diagram to the right, the bases are parallel. To find the area of a
trapezoid, take the sum of its bases, multiply the sum by the height of the
trapezoid, and then divide the result by 2, The formula for the area of a
trapezoid is:

or

where is , is , is the height.and · means multiply.

Each base of a trapezoid must be perpendicular to the height. In the diagram above, both
bases are sides of the trapezoid. However, since the lateral sides are not perpendicular to
either of the bases, a dotted line is drawn to represent the height.

In Examples 1 and 3 below, the height is a side of the trapezoid since it is perpendicular to
the base. In Example 2, the lateral sides are not perpendicular to the base, so a dotted line is
drawn to represent the height.

Example 1: Find the area of a trapezoid with bases of 10 inches

and 14 inches, and a height of 5 inches.
Solution:

= · (10 in + 14 in) · 5 in

= · (24 in) · (5 in)

= · 120 in2
A = 60 in2
Example 2: Find the area of a trapezoid with bases of 9
centimeters and 7 centimeters, and a height of 3
centimeters.
Solution:

= · (9 cm + 7 cm) · 3 cm

= · (16 cm) · (3 cm)

= · 48 cm2
= 24 cm2

Example 3: The area of a trapezoid is 52 square inches and the

bases are 11 inches and 15 inches. Find the height.
Solution:

52 in2 = · (11 in + 15 in) ·

52 in2 = · (26 in) ·

2
52 in = (13 in) ·
52 in2 ÷ (13 in) =
= 4 in

Summary: To find the area of a trapezoid, take the sum of its

bases, multiply the sum by the height of the
trapezoid, and then divide the result by 2, The
formula for the area of a trapezoid is:
or

where is , is , is the
and height.
Example 4 :

Find the area of the following trapezoid:

Solution:

Area of trapezoid

Example 5:

Given that the area of the following

trapezoid is 36. Find the value of h.
 Solution:

Example 6:

Find the area of trapezoid ABCD.

Solution:

This problem appears to be quite simple because we are given the lengths of both bases and the
height of the trapezoid. It does not matter which base we choose as our first or second base
(because addition is commutative). We will just say that b1 is equal to 10 meters and that b2 is 18
meters.

The height of our trapezoid is the perpendicular distance between our bases. The illustration
shows that this distance is equal to 9 meters. Now that we have the measures of both bases and
the height, we can plug them into the area formula for trapezoids. We have

So, the area of trapezoid ABCD is 126 square meters.

Example 7:

Find the area of trapezoid REMN.

Solution:
Finding the area of trapezoid REMN will require some initial work because we are not given the
length of both bases or the height of the figure. Let's use the properties we know about
quadrilaterals to help us deduce some important information.

Notice that there are tick marks around quadrilateral REAS. This means that all sides of the
quadrilateral are congruent. So, we know that segments RS, SA, and AE are congruent to RE;
they all have lengths of 5 centimeters. Let's redraw our figure so that it displays the new
information we've acquired.

The right angles in the figure indicate that RS and NM run perpendicular to each other.
Therefore, we know that the perpendicular distance, or height, between RE and NM is 5
centimeters.

Now that we have the height of trapezoid REMN, we just have to find the length of this
quadrilateral's second base, NM. In order to do this, we need to find the sum of segments NS,
SA, and AM:

We see that our second base has a length of 12 centimeters. Now, we are ready to plug our
values into the area formula to find the area of trapezoid REMN. We get
The area of trapezoid REMN is 42.5 square centimeters.

Alternate Solution:

Is there another way to solve this problem to assure ourselves that our solution is correct?

The answer is yes. Notice that we can split up trapezoid REMN into two triangles and a square.
Therefore, if we take the sum of their areas, they should add up to 42.5. Let's see if this works.

To find the area of ?RSN we have

So, the area of ?RSN is 7.5 square centimeters. Let's find the area of another figure inside of
the trapezoid.

We know that quadrilateral REAS is a parallelogram. In fact, it is a square because it has four
congruent sides and four right angles. We find this area by doing the following:

We see that quadrilateral REAS has an area of 25 square centimeters. We just have to find the
area of the last triangle before we add the areas up.

The last triangle, ?EAM, is determined by performing the following steps:

So, ?EAM has an area of 10 square centimeters.

Finally, we take the sum of these three polygons which make up the trapezoid. We get

Indeed, we are correct about trapezoid REMN having an area of 42.5 square centimeters.