How To Calculate The Area Of A Hexagon

A hexagon is a shape composed of six equilateral triangles. Accordingly, you can calculate a hexagon's area by finding the area of the triangles and adding those areas together. Because the triangles are equilateral, you only need find the area of one triangle and multiply the result by six.

Step 1

Draw three lines within the hexagon. Starting at each vertex, or corner, of the hexagon, draw a line straight across to the vertex on the other side. The result will be a hexagon segmented into six equilateral triangles.

Step 2

Find the area of one triangle. Use the equation for the area of a triangle, A = (1/2)bh, in which b is the base length of the triangle, and h is the height. For example, if you have a hexagon with each side measuring 6 inches and with each inner triangle's height measuring 5.2 inches, plug these numbers into the equation to get (1/2)65.2. The result is the area of a single triangle within the hexagon: 15.6 inches.

Step 3

Multiply the area of the triangle by 6. This calculates the areas of all the triangles combined, thereby giving the area of the entire hexagon. In the example, multiply 15.6 by 6 to get 93.6 square inches as the answer.