Area of a Triangle

Today we are going to find the area of a triangle. Before we do that, we are going to define what a triangle is and what we need in order to calculate the area of a triangle.

What is a triangle?

A triangle has three sides. The sides can be of any lenghts and at any angles to each other. All you have to know in order to find the area of a triangle is the length of its base and its perpendicular height.

In this triangle, the three sides are a, b and c. h is the perpendicular height and b is the base of the triangle. For any triangles, if you know the base (b) and the height (h), you can always find its area. The formula for finding the area of a triangle is this:

Formula for area of triangle

Area of triangle example

Lets do an example so you know how the formula works. Consider a triangle with base of 15 inches wide and perpendicular height of 12 inches tall. The area of this triangle is:

That's it! Now you know how to calculate the area of any triangles.