The Area of a Hexagon

Regular hexagon . . General hexagons . . Area by computer program

Regular hexagon

We can find the area of a regular hexagon by splitting it into 6 equilateral triangles

L is the side length. H is the height of each triangle.

Using Pythagoras' theorem for a right angle triangle:

So:

Now, looking at one of the equilateral triangles:

and:

In approximate numeric terms, the area of a regular hexagon is 2.598 times the square of its side
length.

If you know the smallest width W of the hexagon

the formula is:

In approximate numeric terms, the area of a regular hexagon is 0.866 times the square of its
smallest width.

General hexagons

Click here for the areas of some particular hexagons, and of hexagons which tile or tessellate

In general, if your hexagon is not regular (for instance if its sides are not the same length), and if it does
not tessellate, it may be easiest to cut it into convenient triangles, squares or rectangles and calculate the
area of each of them.

Area by computer program

If you are writing a computer program, try the comp.graphics.algorithms faq, available from
http://www.faqs.org/ among other places. At the time of writing
http://geometryalgorithms.com/Archive/algorithm_0101/ has a standard and simple algorithm for
calculating polygon area.

Click to go to more Hexagon Maths Facts.

Click to go to the Hall of Hexagons.

Comments always welcome

David King last update 9July03