Polygon

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For other uses, see Polygon (disambiguation).

Some polygons of different kinds: open (excluding its boundary), boundary only (excluding
interior), closed (including both boundary and interior), and self-intersecting.

In elementary geometry, a polygon (/ˈpɒlɪɡɒn/) is a plane figure that is described by a finite

number of straight line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain or polygonal
circuit. The solid plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two together, may be called a
polygon.

The segments of a polygonal circuit are called its edges or sides, and the points where two
edges meet are the polygon's vertices (singular: vertex) or corners. The interior of a solid
polygon is sometimes called its body. An n-gon is a polygon with n sides; for example, a
triangle is a 3-gon.

A simple polygon is one which does not intersect itself. Mathematicians are often
concerned only with the bounding polygonal chains of simple polygons and they often
define a polygon accordingly. A polygonal boundary may be allowed to cross over itself,
creating star polygons and other self-intersecting polygons.

A polygon is a 2-dimensional example of the more general polytope in any number of

dimensions. There are many more generalizations of polygons defined for different
purposes.

Contents
 1 Etymology
 2 Classification
o 2.1 Number of sides
o 2.2 Convexity and non-convexity
o 2.3 Equality and symmetry
o 2.4 Miscellaneous
 3 Properties and formulas
o 3.1 Angles
o 3.2 Area
  3.2.1 Regular polygons
 3.2.2 Self-intersecting
o 3.3 Centroid
 4 Generalizations
 5 Naming
o 5.1 Constructing higher names
 6 History
 7 In nature
 8 Computer graphics
 9 See also
 10 References
o 10.1 Bibliography
o 10.2 Notes
 11 External links

Etymology
The word polygon derives from the Greek adjective πολύς (polús) "much", "many" and
γωνία (gōnía) "corner" or "angle". It has been suggested that γόνυ (gónu) "knee" may be
the origin of gon.[1]

Classification

Some different types of polygon

Number of sides

Polygons are primarily classified by the number of sides. See the table below.

Convexity and non-convexity

Polygons may be characterized by their convexity or type of non-convexity:

  Convex: any line drawn through the polygon (and not tangent to an edge or corner)
meets its boundary exactly twice. As a consequence, all its interior angles are less
than 180°. Equivalently, any line segment with endpoints on the boundary passes
through only interior points between its endpoints.
 Non-convex: a line may be found which meets its boundary more than twice.
Equivalently, there exists a line segment between two boundary points that passes
outside the polygon.
 Simple: the boundary of the polygon does not cross itself. All convex polygons are
simple.
 Concave: Non-convex and simple. There is at least one interior angle greater than
180°.
 Star-shaped: the whole interior is visible from at least one point, without crossing
any edge. The polygon must be simple, and may be convex or concave. All convex
polygons are star-shaped.
 Self-intersecting: the boundary of the polygon crosses itself. The term complex is
sometimes used in contrast to simple, but this usage risks confusion with the idea of
a complex polygon as one which exists in the complex Hilbert plane consisting of
two complex dimensions.
 Star polygon: a polygon which self-intersects in a regular way. A polygon cannot be
both a star and star-shaped.

Equality and symmetry

 Equiangular: all corner angles are equal.

 Cyclic: all corners lie on a single circle, called the circumcircle.
 Isogonal or vertex-transitive: all corners lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also cyclic and equiangular.
 Equilateral: all edges are of the same length. The polygon need not be convex.
 Tangential: all sides are tangent to an inscribed circle.
 Isotoxal or edge-transitive: all sides lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also equilateral and tangential.
 Regular: the polygon is both isogonal and isotoxal. Equivalently, it is both cyclic
and equilateral, or both equilateral and equiangular. A non-convex regular polygon
is called a regular star polygon.

Miscellaneous

 Rectilinear: the polygon's sides meet at right angles, i.e., all its interior angles are 90
or 270 degrees.
 Monotone with respect to a given line L: every line orthogonal to L intersects the
polygon not more than twice.

Properties and formulas

Euclidean geometry is assumed throughout.
Angles

Any polygon has as many corners as it has sides. Each corner has several angles. The two
most important ones are:

 Interior angle – The sum of the interior angles of a simple n-gon is (n − 2)π radians
or (n − 2) × 180 degrees. This is because any simple n-gon ( having n sides ) can be
considered to be made up of (n − 2) triangles, each of which has an angle sum of π
radians or 180 degrees. The measure of any interior angle of a convex regular n-gon

is radians or degrees. The interior angles of regular star polygons were

first studied by Poinsot, in the same paper in which he describes the four regular star

polyhedra: for a regular -gon (a p-gon with central density q), each interior

angle is radians or degrees.[2]

 Exterior angle – The exterior angle is the supplementary angle to the interior angle.
Tracing around a convex n-gon, the angle "turned" at a corner is the exterior or
external angle. Tracing all the way around the polygon makes one full turn, so the
sum of the exterior angles must be 360°. This argument can be generalized to
concave simple polygons, if external angles that turn in the opposite direction are
subtracted from the total turned. Tracing around an n-gon in general, the sum of the
exterior angles (the total amount one rotates at the vertices) can be any integer
multiple d of 360°, e.g. 720° for a pentagram and 0° for an angular "eight" or
antiparallelogram, where d is the density or starriness of the polygon. See also orbit
(dynamics).

Area

Coordinates of a non-convex pentagon.

In this section, the vertices of the polygon under consideration are taken to be in order.
For convenience in some formulas, the notation (xn, yn) = (x0, y0) will also be used.

If the polygon is non-self-intersecting (that is, simple), the signed area is

or, using determinants

 [3][4]
where is the squared distance between and

The signed area depends on the ordering of the vertices and of the orientation of the plane.
Commonly, the positive orientation is defined by the (counterclockwise) rotation that maps
the positive x-axis to the positive y-axis. If the vertices are ordered counterclockwise (that
is, according to positive orientation), the signed area is positive; otherwise, it is negative. In
either case, the area formula is correct in absolute value. This is commonly called the
shoelace formula or Surveyor's formula.[5]

The area A of a simple polygon can also be computed if the lengths of the sides, a1, a2, ...,
an and the exterior angles, θ1, θ2, ..., θn are known, from:

The formula was described by Lopshits in 1963.[6]

If the polygon can be drawn on an equally spaced grid such that all its vertices are grid
points, Pick's theorem gives a simple formula for the polygon's area based on the numbers
of interior and boundary grid points: the former number plus one-half the latter number,
minus 1.

In every polygon with perimeter p and area A , the isoperimetric inequality holds.[7]

For any two simple polygons of equal area, the Bolyai–Gerwien theorem asserts that the
first can be cut into polygonal pieces which can be reassembled to form the second
polygon.

The lengths of the sides of a polygon do not in general determine its area.[8] However, if the
polygon is cyclic then the sides do determine the area.[citation needed] Of all n-gons with given
side lengths, the one with the largest area is cyclic. Of all n-gons with a given perimeter, the
one with the largest area is regular (and therefore cyclic).[9]

Regular polygons

Many specialized formulas apply to the areas of regular polygons.

The area of a regular polygon is given in terms of the radius r of its inscribed circle and its
perimeter p by
This radius is also termed its apothem and is often represented as a.

The area of a regular n-gon with side s inscribed in a unit circle is

The area of a regular n-gon in terms of the radius R of its circumscribed circle and its
perimeter p is given by

The area of a regular n-gon inscribed in a unit-radius circle, with side s and interior angle

can also be expressed trigonometrically as

Self-intersecting

The area of a self-intersecting polygon can be defined in two different ways, giving
different answers:

 Using the formulas for simple polygons, we allow that particular regions within the
polygon may have their area multiplied by a factor which we call the density of the
region. For example, the central convex pentagon in the center of a pentagram has
density 2. The two triangular regions of a cross-quadrilateral (like a figure 8) have
opposite-signed densities, and adding their areas together can give a total area of
zero for the whole figure.[citation needed]
 Considering the enclosed regions as point sets, we can find the area of the enclosed
point set. This corresponds to the area of the plane covered by the polygon or to the
area of one or more simple polygons having the same outline as the self-intersecting
one. In the case of the cross-quadrilateral, it is treated as two simple triangles.[citation
needed]

Centroid

Using the same convention for vertex coordinates as in the previous section, the coordinates
of the centroid of a solid simple polygon are
In these formulas, the signed value of area must be used.

For triangles (n = 3), the centroids of the vertices and of the solid shape are the same, but,
in general, this is not true for n > 3. The centroid of the vertex set of a polygon with n
vertices has the coordinates

Generalizations
The idea of a polygon has been generalized in various ways. Some of the more important
include:

 A spherical polygon is a circuit of arcs of great circles (sides) and vertices on the
surface of a sphere. It allows the digon, a polygon having only two sides and two
corners, which is impossible in a flat plane. Spherical polygons play an important
role in cartography (map making) and in Wythoff's construction of the uniform
polyhedra.
 A skew polygon does not lie in a flat plane, but zigzags in three (or more)
dimensions. The Petrie polygons of the regular polytopes are well known examples.
 An apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles, which is not closed but has
no ends because it extends indefinitely in both directions.
 A skew apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles that do not lie in a flat
plane.
 A complex polygon is a configuration analogous to an ordinary polygon, which
exists in the complex plane of two real and two imaginary dimensions.
 An abstract polygon is an algebraic partially ordered set representing the various
elements (sides, vertices, etc.) and their connectivity. A real geometric polygon is
said to be a realization of the associated abstract polygon. Depending on the
mapping, all the generalizations described here can be realized.
 A polyhedron is a three-dimensional solid bounded by flat polygonal faces,
analogous to a polygon in two dimensions. The corresponding shapes in four or
higher dimensions are called polytopes.[10] (In other conventions, the words
polyhedron and polytope are used in any dimension, with the distinction between
the two that a polytope is necessarily bounded.[11])

Naming
The word polygon comes from Late Latin polygōnum (a noun), from Greek πολύγωνον
(polygōnon/polugōnon), noun use of neuter of πολύγωνος (polygōnos/polugōnos, the
masculine adjective), meaning "many-angled". Individual polygons are named (and
sometimes classified) according to the number of sides, combining a Greek-derived
numerical prefix with the suffix -gon, e.g. pentagon, dodecagon. The triangle, quadrilateral
and nonagon are exceptions.

Beyond decagons (10-sided) and dodecagons (12-sided), mathematicians generally use

numerical notation, for example 17-gon and 257-gon.[12]

Exceptions exist for side counts that are more easily expressed in verbal form (e.g. 20 and
30), or are used by non-mathematicians. Some special polygons also have their own names;
for example the regular star pentagon is also known as the pentagram.

Polygon names and miscellaneous properties

Name Edges Properties
Not generally recognised as a polygon,[13] although some
monogon 1 disciplines such as graph theory sometimes use the
term.[14]
Not generally recognised as a polygon in the Euclidean
digon 2
plane, although it can exist as a spherical polygon.[15]
The simplest polygon which can exist in the Euclidean
triangle (or trigon) 3
plane. Can tile the plane.
The simplest polygon which can cross itself; the simplest
quadrilateral (or
4 polygon which can be concave; the simplest polygon
tetragon)
which can be non-cyclic. Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon which can exist as a regular
pentagon 5 star. A star pentagon is known as a pentagram or
pentacle.
[16]
hexagon 6 Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form is
heptagon (or not constructible with compass and straightedge.
7
septagon) However, it can be constructed using a Neusis
construction.
[16]
octagon 8
[16]
nonagon (or "Nonagon" mixes Latin [novem = 9] with Greek,
9
enneagon) "enneagon" is pure Greek.
[16]
decagon 10
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form
hendecagon (or
11 cannot be constructed with compass, straightedge, and
undecagon)
angle trisector.
dodecagon (or [16]
12
duodecagon)
tridecagon (or [16]
13
triskaidecagon)
tetradecagon (or [16]
14
tetrakaidecagon)
pentadecagon (or [16]
15
pentakaidecagon)
hexadecagon (or [16]
16
hexakaidecagon)
heptadecagon (or
17 Constructible polygon[12]
heptakaidecagon)
octadecagon (or [16]
18
octakaidecagon)
enneadecagon (or [16]
19
enneakaidecagon)
[16]
icosagon 20
icositetragon (or [16]
24
icosikaitetragon)
[16]
triacontagon 30
tetracontagon (or [16][17]
40
tessaracontagon)
pentacontagon (or [16][17]
50
pentecontagon)
hexacontagon (or [16][17]
60
hexecontagon)
heptacontagon (or [16][17]
70
hebdomecontagon)
octacontagon (or [16][17]
80
ogdoëcontagon)
enneacontagon (or [16][17]
90
enenecontagon)
hectogon (or [16]
100
hecatontagon)[18]
257-gon 257 Constructible polygon[12]
Philosophers including René Descartes,[19] Immanuel
chiliagon 1000 Kant,[20] David Hume,[21] have used the chiliagon as an
example in discussions.
Used as an example in some philosophical discussions,
myriagon 10,000 for example in Descartes' Meditations on First
Philosophy
65537-gon 65,537 Constructible polygon[12]
As with René Descartes' example of the chiliagon, the
million-sided polygon has been used as an illustration of
a well-defined concept that cannot be
megagon[22][23][24] 1,000,000
visualised.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] The megagon is also used
as an illustration of the convergence of regular polygons
to a circle.[32]
apeirogon ∞ A degenerate polygon of infinitely many sides.

Constructing higher names

To construct the name of a polygon with more than 20 and less than 100 edges, combine
the prefixes as follows.[16] The "kai" term applies to 13-gons and higher and was used by
Kepler, and advocated by John H. Conway for clarity to concatenated prefix numbers in the
naming of quasiregular polyhedra.[18]

and Ones final suffix

Tens
1 -hena-
20 icosi- (icosa- when alone) 2 -di-
30 triaconta- (or triconta-) 3 -tri-
40 tetraconta- (or tessaraconta-) 4 -tetra-
50 pentaconta- (or penteconta-) -kai- 5 -penta- -gon
60 hexaconta- (or hexeconta-) 6 -hexa-
70 heptaconta- (or hebdomeconta-) 7 -hepta-
80 octaconta- (or ogdoëconta-) 8 -octa-
90 enneaconta- (or eneneconta-) 9 -ennea-

History

Historical image of polygons (1699)

Polygons have been known since ancient times. The regular polygons were known to the
ancient Greeks, with the pentagram, a non-convex regular polygon (star polygon),
appearing as early as the 7th century B.C. on a krater by Aristophanes, found at Caere and
now in the Capitoline Museum.[33][34]

The first known systematic study of non-convex polygons in general was made by Thomas
Bradwardine in the 14th century.[35]

In 1952, Geoffrey Colin Shephard generalized the idea of polygons to the complex plane,
where each real dimension is accompanied by an imaginary one, to create complex
polygons.[36]

In nature

The Giant's Causeway, in Northern Ireland

Polygons appear in rock formations, most commonly as the flat facets of crystals, where the
angles between the sides depend on the type of mineral from which the crystal is made.

Regular hexagons can occur when the cooling of lava forms areas of tightly packed
columns of basalt, which may be seen at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, or at the
Devil's Postpile in California.

In biology, the surface of the wax honeycomb made by bees is an array of hexagons, and
the sides and base of each cell are also polygons.

Computer graphics
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In computer graphics, a polygon is a primitive used in modelling and rendering. They are
defined in a database, containing arrays of vertices (the coordinates of the geometrical
vertices, as well as other attributes of the polygon, such as color, shading and texture),
connectivity information, and materials.[37][38]
Naming conventions differ from those of mathematicians:[clarification needed (What is the difference?)]

 A simple polygon is convex, planar, more easily handled by algorithms and

hardware.
 a concave polygon is a simple polygon having at least one interior angle greater
than 180°.
 A complex polygon may have arbitrary topology including holes, requiring more
advanced algorithms (often systems will tesselate these into simple polygons).[citation
needed]

Any surface is modelled as a tessellation called polygon mesh. If a square mesh has n + 1
points (vertices) per side, there are n squared squares in the mesh, or 2n squared triangles
since there are two triangles in a square. There are (n + 1)2 / 2(n2) vertices per triangle.
Where n is large, this approaches one half. Or, each vertex inside the square mesh connects
four edges (lines).

The imaging system calls up the structure of polygons needed for the scene to be created
from the database. This is transferred to active memory and finally, to the display system
(screen, TV monitors etc.) so that the scene can be viewed. During this process, the
imaging system renders polygons in correct perspective ready for transmission of the
processed data to the display system. Although polygons are two-dimensional, through the
system computer they are placed in a visual scene in the correct three-dimensional
orientation.

In computer graphics and computational geometry, it is often necessary to determine

whether a given point P = (x0,y0) lies inside a simple polygon given by a sequence of line
segments. This is called the Point in polygon test.[citation needed]

See also
 Boolean operations on polygons
 Complete graph
 Constructible polygon
 Cyclic polygon
 Geometric shape
 Golygon
 List of polygons
 Polyform
 Polygon soup
 Polygon triangulation
 Precision polygon
 Synthetic geometry
 Tiling
 Tiling puzzle

References
Bibliography

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1973).
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comput. geom: the Goodman-Pollack festschrift, ed. Aronov et al. Springer (2003)
pp. 461–488. (pdf)

Notes

1.

 Craig, John (1849). A new universal etymological technological, and pronouncing

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2012-11-07.
  A.M. Lopshits (1963). Computation of areas of oriented figures. translators: J
Massalski and C Mills, Jr. D C Heath and Company: Boston, MA.
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Mathematicorum 2, 2002, 129–130.
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Mathematics, ISBN 978-0-387-94365-7. p. 4.
  Mathworld
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computational geometry: the Goodman-Pollack Festschrift, Ed. Aronov et al., Springer
(2003), p. 464.
  Hass, Joel; Morgan, Frank (1996), "Geodesic nets on the 2-sphere", Proceedings of
the American Mathematical Society, 124 (12): 3843–3850, doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-96-
03492-2, JSTOR 2161556, MR 1343696.
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  The New Elements of Mathematics: Algebra and Geometry by Charles Sanders Peirce
(1976), p.298
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paradoxes, John Wiley & Sons, 2004. p. 249. ISBN 0-471-27047-4.
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  "opengl vertex specification".
 38.  "direct3d rendering, based on vertices & triangles".

External links

Look up polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Polygons.

 Weisstein, Eric W. "Polygon". MathWorld.

 What Are Polyhedra?, with Greek Numerical Prefixes
 Polygons, types of polygons, and polygon properties, with interactive animation
 How to draw monochrome orthogonal polygons on screens, by Herbert Glarner
 comp.graphics.algorithms Frequently Asked Questions, solutions to mathematical
problems computing 2D and 3D polygons
 Comparison of the different algorithms for Polygon Boolean operations, compares
capabilities, speed and numerical robustness
 Interior angle sum of polygons: a general formula, Provides an interactive Java
investigation that extends the interior angle sum formula for simple closed polygons
to include crossed (complex) polygons

 v
 t
 e

Polygons (List)
 v
 t
 e

Fundamental convex regular and uniform polytopes in dimensions 2–10

E6 / E7 / E8
Family An Bn I2(p) / Dn Hn
/ F4 / G2
Regular
Triangle Square p-gon Hexagon Pentagon
polygon
Uniform Octahedron • Dodecahedron •
Tetrahedron Demicube
polyhedron Cube Icosahedron
Uniform 4- 16-cell • 120-cell • 600-
5-cell Demitesseract 24-cell
polytope Tesseract cell
 Uniform 5- 5-orthoplex •
5-simplex 5-demicube
polytope 5-cube
Uniform 6- 6-orthoplex •
6-simplex 6-demicube 122 • 221
polytope 6-cube
Uniform 7- 7-orthoplex • 132 • 231 •
7-simplex 7-demicube
polytope 7-cube 321
Uniform 8- 8-orthoplex • 142 • 241 •
8-simplex 8-demicube
polytope 8-cube 421
Uniform 9- 9-orthoplex •
9-simplex 9-demicube
polytope 9-cube
Uniform 10- 10-orthoplex
10-simplex 10-demicube
polytope • 10-cube
Uniform n- n-orthoplex • 1k2 • 2k1 • n-pentagonal
n-simplex n-demicube
polytope n-cube k21 polytope
Topics: Polytope families • Regular polytope • List of regular polytopes and
compounds
Categories:

 Polygons
 Euclidean plane geometry

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Polygon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
For other uses, see Polygon (disambiguation).

Some polygons of different kinds: open (excluding its boundary), boundary only (excluding
interior), closed (including both boundary and interior), and self-intersecting.

In elementary geometry, a polygon (/ˈpɒlɪɡɒn/) is a plane figure that is described by a finite

number of straight line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain or polygonal
circuit. The solid plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two together, may be called a
polygon.

The segments of a polygonal circuit are called its edges or sides, and the points where two
edges meet are the polygon's vertices (singular: vertex) or corners. The interior of a solid
polygon is sometimes called its body. An n-gon is a polygon with n sides; for example, a
triangle is a 3-gon.

A simple polygon is one which does not intersect itself. Mathematicians are often
concerned only with the bounding polygonal chains of simple polygons and they often
define a polygon accordingly. A polygonal boundary may be allowed to cross over itself,
creating star polygons and other self-intersecting polygons.

A polygon is a 2-dimensional example of the more general polytope in any number of

dimensions. There are many more generalizations of polygons defined for different
purposes.

Contents
 1 Etymology
 2 Classification
o 2.1 Number of sides
o 2.2 Convexity and non-convexity
 o 2.3 Equality and symmetry
o 2.4 Miscellaneous
 3 Properties and formulas
o 3.1 Angles
o 3.2 Area
 3.2.1 Regular polygons
 3.2.2 Self-intersecting
o 3.3 Centroid
 4 Generalizations
 5 Naming
o 5.1 Constructing higher names
 6 History
 7 In nature
 8 Computer graphics
 9 See also
 10 References
o 10.1 Bibliography
o 10.2 Notes
 11 External links

Etymology
The word polygon derives from the Greek adjective πολύς (polús) "much", "many" and
γωνία (gōnía) "corner" or "angle". It has been suggested that γόνυ (gónu) "knee" may be
the origin of gon.[1]

Classification

Some different types of polygon

Number of sides
Polygons are primarily classified by the number of sides. See the table below.

Convexity and non-convexity

Polygons may be characterized by their convexity or type of non-convexity:

 Convex: any line drawn through the polygon (and not tangent to an edge or corner)
meets its boundary exactly twice. As a consequence, all its interior angles are less
than 180°. Equivalently, any line segment with endpoints on the boundary passes
through only interior points between its endpoints.
 Non-convex: a line may be found which meets its boundary more than twice.
Equivalently, there exists a line segment between two boundary points that passes
outside the polygon.
 Simple: the boundary of the polygon does not cross itself. All convex polygons are
simple.
 Concave: Non-convex and simple. There is at least one interior angle greater than
180°.
 Star-shaped: the whole interior is visible from at least one point, without crossing
any edge. The polygon must be simple, and may be convex or concave. All convex
polygons are star-shaped.
 Self-intersecting: the boundary of the polygon crosses itself. The term complex is
sometimes used in contrast to simple, but this usage risks confusion with the idea of
a complex polygon as one which exists in the complex Hilbert plane consisting of
two complex dimensions.
 Star polygon: a polygon which self-intersects in a regular way. A polygon cannot be
both a star and star-shaped.

Equality and symmetry

 Equiangular: all corner angles are equal.

 Cyclic: all corners lie on a single circle, called the circumcircle.
 Isogonal or vertex-transitive: all corners lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also cyclic and equiangular.
 Equilateral: all edges are of the same length. The polygon need not be convex.
 Tangential: all sides are tangent to an inscribed circle.
 Isotoxal or edge-transitive: all sides lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also equilateral and tangential.
 Regular: the polygon is both isogonal and isotoxal. Equivalently, it is both cyclic
and equilateral, or both equilateral and equiangular. A non-convex regular polygon
is called a regular star polygon.

Miscellaneous

 Rectilinear: the polygon's sides meet at right angles, i.e., all its interior angles are 90
or 270 degrees.
  Monotone with respect to a given line L: every line orthogonal to L intersects the
polygon not more than twice.

Properties and formulas

Euclidean geometry is assumed throughout.

Angles

Any polygon has as many corners as it has sides. Each corner has several angles. The two
most important ones are:

 Interior angle – The sum of the interior angles of a simple n-gon is (n − 2)π radians
or (n − 2) × 180 degrees. This is because any simple n-gon ( having n sides ) can be
considered to be made up of (n − 2) triangles, each of which has an angle sum of π
radians or 180 degrees. The measure of any interior angle of a convex regular n-gon

is radians or degrees. The interior angles of regular star polygons were

first studied by Poinsot, in the same paper in which he describes the four regular star

polyhedra: for a regular -gon (a p-gon with central density q), each interior

angle is radians or degrees.[2]

 Exterior angle – The exterior angle is the supplementary angle to the interior angle.
Tracing around a convex n-gon, the angle "turned" at a corner is the exterior or
external angle. Tracing all the way around the polygon makes one full turn, so the
sum of the exterior angles must be 360°. This argument can be generalized to
concave simple polygons, if external angles that turn in the opposite direction are
subtracted from the total turned. Tracing around an n-gon in general, the sum of the
exterior angles (the total amount one rotates at the vertices) can be any integer
multiple d of 360°, e.g. 720° for a pentagram and 0° for an angular "eight" or
antiparallelogram, where d is the density or starriness of the polygon. See also orbit
(dynamics).

Area

Coordinates of a non-convex pentagon.

In this section, the vertices of the polygon under consideration are taken to be in order.
For convenience in some formulas, the notation (xn, yn) = (x0, y0) will also be used.

If the polygon is non-self-intersecting (that is, simple), the signed area is

or, using determinants

[3][4]
where is the squared distance between and

The signed area depends on the ordering of the vertices and of the orientation of the plane.
Commonly, the positive orientation is defined by the (counterclockwise) rotation that maps
the positive x-axis to the positive y-axis. If the vertices are ordered counterclockwise (that
is, according to positive orientation), the signed area is positive; otherwise, it is negative. In
either case, the area formula is correct in absolute value. This is commonly called the
shoelace formula or Surveyor's formula.[5]

The area A of a simple polygon can also be computed if the lengths of the sides, a1, a2, ...,
an and the exterior angles, θ1, θ2, ..., θn are known, from:

The formula was described by Lopshits in 1963.[6]

If the polygon can be drawn on an equally spaced grid such that all its vertices are grid
points, Pick's theorem gives a simple formula for the polygon's area based on the numbers
of interior and boundary grid points: the former number plus one-half the latter number,
minus 1.

In every polygon with perimeter p and area A , the isoperimetric inequality holds.[7]

For any two simple polygons of equal area, the Bolyai–Gerwien theorem asserts that the
first can be cut into polygonal pieces which can be reassembled to form the second
polygon.

The lengths of the sides of a polygon do not in general determine its area.[8] However, if the
polygon is cyclic then the sides do determine the area.[citation needed] Of all n-gons with given
side lengths, the one with the largest area is cyclic. Of all n-gons with a given perimeter, the
one with the largest area is regular (and therefore cyclic).[9]

Regular polygons

Many specialized formulas apply to the areas of regular polygons.

The area of a regular polygon is given in terms of the radius r of its inscribed circle and its
perimeter p by

This radius is also termed its apothem and is often represented as a.

The area of a regular n-gon with side s inscribed in a unit circle is

The area of a regular n-gon in terms of the radius R of its circumscribed circle and its
perimeter p is given by

The area of a regular n-gon inscribed in a unit-radius circle, with side s and interior angle

can also be expressed trigonometrically as

Self-intersecting

The area of a self-intersecting polygon can be defined in two different ways, giving
different answers:

 Using the formulas for simple polygons, we allow that particular regions within the
polygon may have their area multiplied by a factor which we call the density of the
region. For example, the central convex pentagon in the center of a pentagram has
density 2. The two triangular regions of a cross-quadrilateral (like a figure 8) have
opposite-signed densities, and adding their areas together can give a total area of
zero for the whole figure.[citation needed]
 Considering the enclosed regions as point sets, we can find the area of the enclosed
point set. This corresponds to the area of the plane covered by the polygon or to the
area of one or more simple polygons having the same outline as the self-intersecting
 one. In the case of the cross-quadrilateral, it is treated as two simple triangles.[citation
needed]

Centroid

Using the same convention for vertex coordinates as in the previous section, the coordinates
of the centroid of a solid simple polygon are

In these formulas, the signed value of area must be used.

For triangles (n = 3), the centroids of the vertices and of the solid shape are the same, but,
in general, this is not true for n > 3. The centroid of the vertex set of a polygon with n
vertices has the coordinates

Generalizations
The idea of a polygon has been generalized in various ways. Some of the more important
include:

 A spherical polygon is a circuit of arcs of great circles (sides) and vertices on the
surface of a sphere. It allows the digon, a polygon having only two sides and two
corners, which is impossible in a flat plane. Spherical polygons play an important
role in cartography (map making) and in Wythoff's construction of the uniform
polyhedra.
 A skew polygon does not lie in a flat plane, but zigzags in three (or more)
dimensions. The Petrie polygons of the regular polytopes are well known examples.
 An apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles, which is not closed but has
no ends because it extends indefinitely in both directions.
 A skew apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles that do not lie in a flat
plane.
 A complex polygon is a configuration analogous to an ordinary polygon, which
exists in the complex plane of two real and two imaginary dimensions.
 An abstract polygon is an algebraic partially ordered set representing the various
elements (sides, vertices, etc.) and their connectivity. A real geometric polygon is
said to be a realization of the associated abstract polygon. Depending on the
mapping, all the generalizations described here can be realized.
  A polyhedron is a three-dimensional solid bounded by flat polygonal faces,
analogous to a polygon in two dimensions. The corresponding shapes in four or
higher dimensions are called polytopes.[10] (In other conventions, the words
polyhedron and polytope are used in any dimension, with the distinction between
the two that a polytope is necessarily bounded.[11])

Naming
The word polygon comes from Late Latin polygōnum (a noun), from Greek πολύγωνον
(polygōnon/polugōnon), noun use of neuter of πολύγωνος (polygōnos/polugōnos, the
masculine adjective), meaning "many-angled". Individual polygons are named (and
sometimes classified) according to the number of sides, combining a Greek-derived
numerical prefix with the suffix -gon, e.g. pentagon, dodecagon. The triangle, quadrilateral
and nonagon are exceptions.

Beyond decagons (10-sided) and dodecagons (12-sided), mathematicians generally use

numerical notation, for example 17-gon and 257-gon.[12]

Exceptions exist for side counts that are more easily expressed in verbal form (e.g. 20 and
30), or are used by non-mathematicians. Some special polygons also have their own names;
for example the regular star pentagon is also known as the pentagram.

Polygon names and miscellaneous properties

Name Edges Properties
Not generally recognised as a polygon,[13] although some
monogon 1 disciplines such as graph theory sometimes use the
term.[14]
Not generally recognised as a polygon in the Euclidean
digon 2
plane, although it can exist as a spherical polygon.[15]
The simplest polygon which can exist in the Euclidean
triangle (or trigon) 3
plane. Can tile the plane.
The simplest polygon which can cross itself; the simplest
quadrilateral (or
4 polygon which can be concave; the simplest polygon
tetragon)
which can be non-cyclic. Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon which can exist as a regular
pentagon 5 star. A star pentagon is known as a pentagram or
pentacle.
[16]
hexagon 6 Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form is
heptagon (or not constructible with compass and straightedge.
7
septagon) However, it can be constructed using a Neusis
construction.
[16]
octagon 8
 [16]
nonagon (or "Nonagon" mixes Latin [novem = 9] with Greek,
9
enneagon) "enneagon" is pure Greek.
[16]
decagon 10
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form
hendecagon (or
11 cannot be constructed with compass, straightedge, and
undecagon)
angle trisector.
dodecagon (or [16]
12
duodecagon)
tridecagon (or [16]
13
triskaidecagon)
tetradecagon (or [16]
14
tetrakaidecagon)
pentadecagon (or [16]
15
pentakaidecagon)
hexadecagon (or [16]
16
hexakaidecagon)
heptadecagon (or
17 Constructible polygon[12]
heptakaidecagon)
octadecagon (or [16]
18
octakaidecagon)
enneadecagon (or [16]
19
enneakaidecagon)
[16]
icosagon 20
icositetragon (or [16]
24
icosikaitetragon)
[16]
triacontagon 30
tetracontagon (or [16][17]
40
tessaracontagon)
pentacontagon (or [16][17]
50
pentecontagon)
hexacontagon (or [16][17]
60
hexecontagon)
heptacontagon (or [16][17]
70
hebdomecontagon)
octacontagon (or [16][17]
80
ogdoëcontagon)
enneacontagon (or [16][17]
90
enenecontagon)
hectogon (or [16]
100
hecatontagon)[18]
257-gon 257 Constructible polygon[12]
 Philosophers including René Descartes,[19] Immanuel
chiliagon 1000 Kant,[20] David Hume,[21] have used the chiliagon as an
example in discussions.
Used as an example in some philosophical discussions,
myriagon 10,000 for example in Descartes' Meditations on First
Philosophy
65537-gon 65,537 Constructible polygon[12]
As with René Descartes' example of the chiliagon, the
million-sided polygon has been used as an illustration of
a well-defined concept that cannot be
megagon[22][23][24] 1,000,000
visualised.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] The megagon is also used
as an illustration of the convergence of regular polygons
to a circle.[32]
apeirogon ∞ A degenerate polygon of infinitely many sides.

Constructing higher names

To construct the name of a polygon with more than 20 and less than 100 edges, combine
the prefixes as follows.[16] The "kai" term applies to 13-gons and higher and was used by
Kepler, and advocated by John H. Conway for clarity to concatenated prefix numbers in the
naming of quasiregular polyhedra.[18]

and Ones final suffix

Tens
1 -hena-
20 icosi- (icosa- when alone) 2 -di-
30 triaconta- (or triconta-) 3 -tri-
40 tetraconta- (or tessaraconta-) 4 -tetra-
50 pentaconta- (or penteconta-) -kai- 5 -penta- -gon
60 hexaconta- (or hexeconta-) 6 -hexa-
70 heptaconta- (or hebdomeconta-) 7 -hepta-
80 octaconta- (or ogdoëconta-) 8 -octa-
90 enneaconta- (or eneneconta-) 9 -ennea-

History
Historical image of polygons (1699)

Polygons have been known since ancient times. The regular polygons were known to the
ancient Greeks, with the pentagram, a non-convex regular polygon (star polygon),
appearing as early as the 7th century B.C. on a krater by Aristophanes, found at Caere and
now in the Capitoline Museum.[33][34]

The first known systematic study of non-convex polygons in general was made by Thomas
Bradwardine in the 14th century.[35]

In 1952, Geoffrey Colin Shephard generalized the idea of polygons to the complex plane,
where each real dimension is accompanied by an imaginary one, to create complex
polygons.[36]

In nature

The Giant's Causeway, in Northern Ireland

Polygons appear in rock formations, most commonly as the flat facets of crystals, where the
angles between the sides depend on the type of mineral from which the crystal is made.
Regular hexagons can occur when the cooling of lava forms areas of tightly packed
columns of basalt, which may be seen at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, or at the
Devil's Postpile in California.

In biology, the surface of the wax honeycomb made by bees is an array of hexagons, and
the sides and base of each cell are also polygons.

Computer graphics
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In computer graphics, a polygon is a primitive used in modelling and rendering. They are
defined in a database, containing arrays of vertices (the coordinates of the geometrical
vertices, as well as other attributes of the polygon, such as color, shading and texture),
connectivity information, and materials.[37][38]

Naming conventions differ from those of mathematicians:[clarification needed (What is the difference?)]

 A simple polygon is convex, planar, more easily handled by algorithms and

hardware.
 a concave polygon is a simple polygon having at least one interior angle greater
than 180°.
 A complex polygon may have arbitrary topology including holes, requiring more
advanced algorithms (often systems will tesselate these into simple polygons).[citation
needed]

Any surface is modelled as a tessellation called polygon mesh. If a square mesh has n + 1
points (vertices) per side, there are n squared squares in the mesh, or 2n squared triangles
since there are two triangles in a square. There are (n + 1)2 / 2(n2) vertices per triangle.
Where n is large, this approaches one half. Or, each vertex inside the square mesh connects
four edges (lines).

The imaging system calls up the structure of polygons needed for the scene to be created
from the database. This is transferred to active memory and finally, to the display system
(screen, TV monitors etc.) so that the scene can be viewed. During this process, the
imaging system renders polygons in correct perspective ready for transmission of the
processed data to the display system. Although polygons are two-dimensional, through the
system computer they are placed in a visual scene in the correct three-dimensional
orientation.
In computer graphics and computational geometry, it is often necessary to determine
whether a given point P = (x0,y0) lies inside a simple polygon given by a sequence of line
segments. This is called the Point in polygon test.[citation needed]

See also
 Boolean operations on polygons
 Complete graph
 Constructible polygon
 Cyclic polygon
 Geometric shape
 Golygon
 List of polygons
 Polyform
 Polygon soup
 Polygon triangulation
 Precision polygon
 Synthetic geometry
 Tiling
 Tiling puzzle

References
Bibliography

 Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular Polytopes, Methuen and Co., 1948 (3rd Edition, Dover,
1973).
 Cromwell, P.; Polyhedra, CUP hbk (1997), pbk. (1999).
 Grünbaum, B.; Are your polyhedra the same as my polyhedra? Discrete and
comput. geom: the Goodman-Pollack festschrift, ed. Aronov et al. Springer (2003)
pp. 461–488. (pdf)

Notes

1.

 Craig, John (1849). A new universal etymological technological, and pronouncing

dictionary of the English language. Oxford University. p. 404. Extract of p. 404
  Kappraff, Jay (2002). Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and
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  Bourke, Paul (July 1988). "Calculating The Area And Centroid Of A Polygon" (PDF).
Retrieved 6 Feb 2013.
  Bart Braden (1986). "The Surveyor's Area Formula" (PDF). The College Mathematics
Journal. 17 (4): 326–337. doi:10.2307/2686282. Archived from the original (PDF) on
2012-11-07.
  A.M. Lopshits (1963). Computation of areas of oriented figures. translators: J
Massalski and C Mills, Jr. D C Heath and Company: Boston, MA.
  Dergiades, Nikolaos, "An elementary proof of the isoperimetric inequality", Forum
Mathematicorum 2, 2002, 129–130.
  Robbins, "Polygons inscribed in a circle," American Mathematical Monthly 102, June–
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  Chakerian, G. D. "A Distorted View of Geometry." Ch. 7 in Mathematical Plums (R.
Honsberger, editor). Washington, DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1979: 147.
  Coxeter (3rd Ed 1973)
  Günter Ziegler (1995). "Lectures on Polytopes". Springer Graduate Texts in
Mathematics, ISBN 978-0-387-94365-7. p. 4.
  Mathworld
  Grunbaum, B.; "Are your polyhedra the same as my polyhedra", Discrete and
computational geometry: the Goodman-Pollack Festschrift, Ed. Aronov et al., Springer
(2003), p. 464.
  Hass, Joel; Morgan, Frank (1996), "Geodesic nets on the 2-sphere", Proceedings of
the American Mathematical Society, 124 (12): 3843–3850, doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-96-
03492-2, JSTOR 2161556, MR 1343696.
  Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular polytopes, Dover Edition (1973), p. 4.
  Salomon, David (2011). The Computer Graphics Manual. Springer Science &
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  The New Elements of Mathematics: Algebra and Geometry by Charles Sanders Peirce
(1976), p.298
  "Naming Polygons and Polyhedra". Ask Dr. Math. The Math Forum – Drexel
University. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
  Sepkoski, David (2005). "Nominalism and constructivism in seventeenth-century
mathematical philosophy" (PDF). Historia Mathematica. 32: 33–59.
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  Gottfried Martin (1955), Kant's Metaphysics and Theory of Science, Manchester
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  David Hume, The Philosophical Works of David Hume, Volume 1, Black and Tait,
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paradoxes, John Wiley & Sons, 2004. p. 249. ISBN 0-471-27047-4.
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1999. p. 505. ISBN 0-201-34712-1.
  McCormick, John Francis, Scholastic Metaphysics, Loyola University Press, 1928, p.
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  Merrill, John Calhoun and Odell, S. Jack, Philosophy and Journalism, Longman,
1983, p. 47, ISBN 0-582-28157-1.
  Hospers, John, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 4th ed, Routledge, 1997, p.
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  Mandik, Pete, Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind, Continuum International Publishing
Group, 2010, p. 26, ISBN 1-84706-349-7.
  Kenny, Anthony, The Rise of Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006, p.
124, ISBN 0-19-875277-6.
  Balmes, James, Fundamental Philosophy, Vol II, Sadlier and Co., Boston, 1856, p. 27.
  Potter, Vincent G., On Understanding Understanding: A Philosophy of Knowledge,
2nd ed, Fordham University Press, 1993, p. 86, ISBN 0-8232-1486-9.
  Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, reprint edition, Routledge, 2004, p.
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  Heath, Sir Thomas Little (1981), A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume 1, Courier
Dover Publications, p. 162, ISBN 978-0-486-24073-2. Reprint of original 1921 publication
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  Cratere with the blinding of Polyphemus and a naval battle Archived 2013-11-12 at
the Wayback Machine, Castellani Halls, Capitoline Museum, accessed 2013-11-11. Two
pentagrams are visible near the center of the image,
  Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular Polytopes, 3rd Edn, Dover (pbk), 1973, p. 114
  Shephard, G.C.; "Regular complex polytopes", Proc. London Math. Soc. Series 3
Volume 2, 1952, pp 82-97
  "opengl vertex specification".

38.  "direct3d rendering, based on vertices & triangles".

External links

Look up polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Polygons.

 Weisstein, Eric W. "Polygon". MathWorld.

 What Are Polyhedra?, with Greek Numerical Prefixes
 Polygons, types of polygons, and polygon properties, with interactive animation
 How to draw monochrome orthogonal polygons on screens, by Herbert Glarner
 comp.graphics.algorithms Frequently Asked Questions, solutions to mathematical
problems computing 2D and 3D polygons
 Comparison of the different algorithms for Polygon Boolean operations, compares
capabilities, speed and numerical robustness
  Interior angle sum of polygons: a general formula, Provides an interactive Java
investigation that extends the interior angle sum formula for simple closed polygons
to include crossed (complex) polygons

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Polygons (List)
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Fundamental convex regular and uniform polytopes in dimensions 2–10

E6 / E7 / E8
Family An Bn I2(p) / Dn Hn
/ F4 / G2
Regular
Triangle Square p-gon Hexagon Pentagon
polygon
Uniform Octahedron • Dodecahedron •
Tetrahedron Demicube
polyhedron Cube Icosahedron
Uniform 4- 16-cell • 120-cell • 600-
5-cell Demitesseract 24-cell
polytope Tesseract cell
Uniform 5- 5-orthoplex •
5-simplex 5-demicube
polytope 5-cube
Uniform 6- 6-orthoplex •
6-simplex 6-demicube 122 • 221
polytope 6-cube
Uniform 7- 7-orthoplex • 132 • 231 •
7-simplex 7-demicube
polytope 7-cube 321
Uniform 8- 8-orthoplex • 142 • 241 •
8-simplex 8-demicube
polytope 8-cube 421
Uniform 9- 9-orthoplex •
9-simplex 9-demicube
polytope 9-cube
Uniform 10- 10-orthoplex
10-simplex 10-demicube
polytope • 10-cube
Uniform n- n-orthoplex • 1k2 • 2k1 • n-pentagonal
n-simplex n-demicube
polytope n-cube k21 polytope
Topics: Polytope families • Regular polytope • List of regular polytopes and
compounds
Categories:
  Polygons
 Euclidean plane geometry

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Polygon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
For other uses, see Polygon (disambiguation).

Some polygons of different kinds: open (excluding its boundary), boundary only (excluding
interior), closed (including both boundary and interior), and self-intersecting.

In elementary geometry, a polygon (/ˈpɒlɪɡɒn/) is a plane figure that is described by a finite

number of straight line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain or polygonal
circuit. The solid plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two together, may be called a
polygon.

The segments of a polygonal circuit are called its edges or sides, and the points where two
edges meet are the polygon's vertices (singular: vertex) or corners. The interior of a solid
polygon is sometimes called its body. An n-gon is a polygon with n sides; for example, a
triangle is a 3-gon.

A simple polygon is one which does not intersect itself. Mathematicians are often
concerned only with the bounding polygonal chains of simple polygons and they often
define a polygon accordingly. A polygonal boundary may be allowed to cross over itself,
creating star polygons and other self-intersecting polygons.

A polygon is a 2-dimensional example of the more general polytope in any number of

dimensions. There are many more generalizations of polygons defined for different
purposes.

Contents
 1 Etymology
 2 Classification
o 2.1 Number of sides
o 2.2 Convexity and non-convexity
o 2.3 Equality and symmetry
o 2.4 Miscellaneous
 3 Properties and formulas
o 3.1 Angles
o 3.2 Area
 3.2.1 Regular polygons
 3.2.2 Self-intersecting
o 3.3 Centroid
 4 Generalizations
 5 Naming
o 5.1 Constructing higher names
 6 History
 7 In nature
 8 Computer graphics
 9 See also
 10 References
o 10.1 Bibliography
o 10.2 Notes
 11 External links
Etymology
The word polygon derives from the Greek adjective πολύς (polús) "much", "many" and
γωνία (gōnía) "corner" or "angle". It has been suggested that γόνυ (gónu) "knee" may be
the origin of gon.[1]

Classification

Some different types of polygon

Number of sides

Polygons are primarily classified by the number of sides. See the table below.

Convexity and non-convexity

Polygons may be characterized by their convexity or type of non-convexity:

 Convex: any line drawn through the polygon (and not tangent to an edge or corner)
meets its boundary exactly twice. As a consequence, all its interior angles are less
than 180°. Equivalently, any line segment with endpoints on the boundary passes
through only interior points between its endpoints.
 Non-convex: a line may be found which meets its boundary more than twice.
Equivalently, there exists a line segment between two boundary points that passes
outside the polygon.
 Simple: the boundary of the polygon does not cross itself. All convex polygons are
simple.
 Concave: Non-convex and simple. There is at least one interior angle greater than
180°.
 Star-shaped: the whole interior is visible from at least one point, without crossing
any edge. The polygon must be simple, and may be convex or concave. All convex
polygons are star-shaped.
  Self-intersecting: the boundary of the polygon crosses itself. The term complex is
sometimes used in contrast to simple, but this usage risks confusion with the idea of
a complex polygon as one which exists in the complex Hilbert plane consisting of
two complex dimensions.
 Star polygon: a polygon which self-intersects in a regular way. A polygon cannot be
both a star and star-shaped.

Equality and symmetry

 Equiangular: all corner angles are equal.

 Cyclic: all corners lie on a single circle, called the circumcircle.
 Isogonal or vertex-transitive: all corners lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also cyclic and equiangular.
 Equilateral: all edges are of the same length. The polygon need not be convex.
 Tangential: all sides are tangent to an inscribed circle.
 Isotoxal or edge-transitive: all sides lie within the same symmetry orbit. The
polygon is also equilateral and tangential.
 Regular: the polygon is both isogonal and isotoxal. Equivalently, it is both cyclic
and equilateral, or both equilateral and equiangular. A non-convex regular polygon
is called a regular star polygon.

Miscellaneous

 Rectilinear: the polygon's sides meet at right angles, i.e., all its interior angles are 90
or 270 degrees.
 Monotone with respect to a given line L: every line orthogonal to L intersects the
polygon not more than twice.

Properties and formulas

Euclidean geometry is assumed throughout.

Angles

Any polygon has as many corners as it has sides. Each corner has several angles. The two
most important ones are:

 Interior angle – The sum of the interior angles of a simple n-gon is (n − 2)π radians
or (n − 2) × 180 degrees. This is because any simple n-gon ( having n sides ) can be
considered to be made up of (n − 2) triangles, each of which has an angle sum of π
radians or 180 degrees. The measure of any interior angle of a convex regular n-gon

is radians or degrees. The interior angles of regular star polygons were

first studied by Poinsot, in the same paper in which he describes the four regular star
 polyhedra: for a regular -gon (a p-gon with central density q), each interior

angle is radians or degrees.[2]

 Exterior angle – The exterior angle is the supplementary angle to the interior angle.
Tracing around a convex n-gon, the angle "turned" at a corner is the exterior or
external angle. Tracing all the way around the polygon makes one full turn, so the
sum of the exterior angles must be 360°. This argument can be generalized to
concave simple polygons, if external angles that turn in the opposite direction are
subtracted from the total turned. Tracing around an n-gon in general, the sum of the
exterior angles (the total amount one rotates at the vertices) can be any integer
multiple d of 360°, e.g. 720° for a pentagram and 0° for an angular "eight" or
antiparallelogram, where d is the density or starriness of the polygon. See also orbit
(dynamics).

Area

Coordinates of a non-convex pentagon.

In this section, the vertices of the polygon under consideration are taken to be in order.
For convenience in some formulas, the notation (xn, yn) = (x0, y0) will also be used.

If the polygon is non-self-intersecting (that is, simple), the signed area is

or, using determinants

[3][4]
where is the squared distance between and

The signed area depends on the ordering of the vertices and of the orientation of the plane.
Commonly, the positive orientation is defined by the (counterclockwise) rotation that maps
the positive x-axis to the positive y-axis. If the vertices are ordered counterclockwise (that
is, according to positive orientation), the signed area is positive; otherwise, it is negative. In
either case, the area formula is correct in absolute value. This is commonly called the
shoelace formula or Surveyor's formula.[5]

The area A of a simple polygon can also be computed if the lengths of the sides, a1, a2, ...,
an and the exterior angles, θ1, θ2, ..., θn are known, from:

The formula was described by Lopshits in 1963.[6]

If the polygon can be drawn on an equally spaced grid such that all its vertices are grid
points, Pick's theorem gives a simple formula for the polygon's area based on the numbers
of interior and boundary grid points: the former number plus one-half the latter number,
minus 1.

In every polygon with perimeter p and area A , the isoperimetric inequality holds.[7]

For any two simple polygons of equal area, the Bolyai–Gerwien theorem asserts that the
first can be cut into polygonal pieces which can be reassembled to form the second
polygon.

The lengths of the sides of a polygon do not in general determine its area.[8] However, if the
polygon is cyclic then the sides do determine the area.[citation needed] Of all n-gons with given
side lengths, the one with the largest area is cyclic. Of all n-gons with a given perimeter, the
one with the largest area is regular (and therefore cyclic).[9]

Regular polygons

Many specialized formulas apply to the areas of regular polygons.

The area of a regular polygon is given in terms of the radius r of its inscribed circle and its
perimeter p by

This radius is also termed its apothem and is often represented as a.

The area of a regular n-gon with side s inscribed in a unit circle is

The area of a regular n-gon in terms of the radius R of its circumscribed circle and its
perimeter p is given by
The area of a regular n-gon inscribed in a unit-radius circle, with side s and interior angle

can also be expressed trigonometrically as

Self-intersecting

The area of a self-intersecting polygon can be defined in two different ways, giving
different answers:

 Using the formulas for simple polygons, we allow that particular regions within the
polygon may have their area multiplied by a factor which we call the density of the
region. For example, the central convex pentagon in the center of a pentagram has
density 2. The two triangular regions of a cross-quadrilateral (like a figure 8) have
opposite-signed densities, and adding their areas together can give a total area of
zero for the whole figure.[citation needed]
 Considering the enclosed regions as point sets, we can find the area of the enclosed
point set. This corresponds to the area of the plane covered by the polygon or to the
area of one or more simple polygons having the same outline as the self-intersecting
one. In the case of the cross-quadrilateral, it is treated as two simple triangles.[citation
needed]

Centroid

Using the same convention for vertex coordinates as in the previous section, the coordinates
of the centroid of a solid simple polygon are

In these formulas, the signed value of area must be used.

For triangles (n = 3), the centroids of the vertices and of the solid shape are the same, but,
in general, this is not true for n > 3. The centroid of the vertex set of a polygon with n
vertices has the coordinates
Generalizations
The idea of a polygon has been generalized in various ways. Some of the more important
include:

 A spherical polygon is a circuit of arcs of great circles (sides) and vertices on the
surface of a sphere. It allows the digon, a polygon having only two sides and two
corners, which is impossible in a flat plane. Spherical polygons play an important
role in cartography (map making) and in Wythoff's construction of the uniform
polyhedra.
 A skew polygon does not lie in a flat plane, but zigzags in three (or more)
dimensions. The Petrie polygons of the regular polytopes are well known examples.
 An apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles, which is not closed but has
no ends because it extends indefinitely in both directions.
 A skew apeirogon is an infinite sequence of sides and angles that do not lie in a flat
plane.
 A complex polygon is a configuration analogous to an ordinary polygon, which
exists in the complex plane of two real and two imaginary dimensions.
 An abstract polygon is an algebraic partially ordered set representing the various
elements (sides, vertices, etc.) and their connectivity. A real geometric polygon is
said to be a realization of the associated abstract polygon. Depending on the
mapping, all the generalizations described here can be realized.
 A polyhedron is a three-dimensional solid bounded by flat polygonal faces,
analogous to a polygon in two dimensions. The corresponding shapes in four or
higher dimensions are called polytopes.[10] (In other conventions, the words
polyhedron and polytope are used in any dimension, with the distinction between
the two that a polytope is necessarily bounded.[11])

Naming
The word polygon comes from Late Latin polygōnum (a noun), from Greek πολύγωνον
(polygōnon/polugōnon), noun use of neuter of πολύγωνος (polygōnos/polugōnos, the
masculine adjective), meaning "many-angled". Individual polygons are named (and
sometimes classified) according to the number of sides, combining a Greek-derived
numerical prefix with the suffix -gon, e.g. pentagon, dodecagon. The triangle, quadrilateral
and nonagon are exceptions.

Beyond decagons (10-sided) and dodecagons (12-sided), mathematicians generally use

numerical notation, for example 17-gon and 257-gon.[12]

Exceptions exist for side counts that are more easily expressed in verbal form (e.g. 20 and
30), or are used by non-mathematicians. Some special polygons also have their own names;
for example the regular star pentagon is also known as the pentagram.

Polygon names and miscellaneous properties

 Name Edges Properties
Not generally recognised as a polygon,[13] although some
monogon 1 disciplines such as graph theory sometimes use the
term.[14]
Not generally recognised as a polygon in the Euclidean
digon 2
plane, although it can exist as a spherical polygon.[15]
The simplest polygon which can exist in the Euclidean
triangle (or trigon) 3
plane. Can tile the plane.
The simplest polygon which can cross itself; the simplest
quadrilateral (or
4 polygon which can be concave; the simplest polygon
tetragon)
which can be non-cyclic. Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon which can exist as a regular
pentagon 5 star. A star pentagon is known as a pentagram or
pentacle.
[16]
hexagon 6 Can tile the plane.
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form is
heptagon (or not constructible with compass and straightedge.
7
septagon) However, it can be constructed using a Neusis
construction.
[16]
octagon 8
[16]
nonagon (or "Nonagon" mixes Latin [novem = 9] with Greek,
9
enneagon) "enneagon" is pure Greek.
[16]
decagon 10
[16]
The simplest polygon such that the regular form
hendecagon (or
11 cannot be constructed with compass, straightedge, and
undecagon)
angle trisector.
dodecagon (or [16]
12
duodecagon)
tridecagon (or [16]
13
triskaidecagon)
tetradecagon (or [16]
14
tetrakaidecagon)
pentadecagon (or [16]
15
pentakaidecagon)
hexadecagon (or [16]
16
hexakaidecagon)
heptadecagon (or
17 Constructible polygon[12]
heptakaidecagon)
octadecagon (or [16]
18
octakaidecagon)
enneadecagon (or [16]
19
enneakaidecagon)
 [16]
icosagon 20
icositetragon (or [16]
24
icosikaitetragon)
[16]
triacontagon 30
tetracontagon (or [16][17]
40
tessaracontagon)
pentacontagon (or [16][17]
50
pentecontagon)
hexacontagon (or [16][17]
60
hexecontagon)
heptacontagon (or [16][17]
70
hebdomecontagon)
octacontagon (or [16][17]
80
ogdoëcontagon)
enneacontagon (or [16][17]
90
enenecontagon)
hectogon (or [16]
100
hecatontagon)[18]
257-gon 257 Constructible polygon[12]
Philosophers including René Descartes,[19] Immanuel
chiliagon 1000 Kant,[20] David Hume,[21] have used the chiliagon as an
example in discussions.
Used as an example in some philosophical discussions,
myriagon 10,000 for example in Descartes' Meditations on First
Philosophy
65537-gon 65,537 Constructible polygon[12]
As with René Descartes' example of the chiliagon, the
million-sided polygon has been used as an illustration of
a well-defined concept that cannot be
megagon[22][23][24] 1,000,000
visualised.[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] The megagon is also used
as an illustration of the convergence of regular polygons
to a circle.[32]
apeirogon ∞ A degenerate polygon of infinitely many sides.

Constructing higher names

To construct the name of a polygon with more than 20 and less than 100 edges, combine
the prefixes as follows.[16] The "kai" term applies to 13-gons and higher and was used by
Kepler, and advocated by John H. Conway for clarity to concatenated prefix numbers in the
naming of quasiregular polyhedra.[18]

Tens and Ones final suffix

 1 -hena-
20 icosi- (icosa- when alone) 2 -di-
30 triaconta- (or triconta-) 3 -tri-
40 tetraconta- (or tessaraconta-) 4 -tetra-
50 pentaconta- (or penteconta-) -kai- 5 -penta- -gon
60 hexaconta- (or hexeconta-) 6 -hexa-
70 heptaconta- (or hebdomeconta-) 7 -hepta-
80 octaconta- (or ogdoëconta-) 8 -octa-
90 enneaconta- (or eneneconta-) 9 -ennea-

History

Historical image of polygons (1699)

Polygons have been known since ancient times. The regular polygons were known to the
ancient Greeks, with the pentagram, a non-convex regular polygon (star polygon),
appearing as early as the 7th century B.C. on a krater by Aristophanes, found at Caere and
now in the Capitoline Museum.[33][34]

The first known systematic study of non-convex polygons in general was made by Thomas
Bradwardine in the 14th century.[35]

In 1952, Geoffrey Colin Shephard generalized the idea of polygons to the complex plane,
where each real dimension is accompanied by an imaginary one, to create complex
polygons.[36]
In nature

The Giant's Causeway, in Northern Ireland

Polygons appear in rock formations, most commonly as the flat facets of crystals, where the
angles between the sides depend on the type of mineral from which the crystal is made.

Regular hexagons can occur when the cooling of lava forms areas of tightly packed
columns of basalt, which may be seen at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, or at the
Devil's Postpile in California.

In biology, the surface of the wax honeycomb made by bees is an array of hexagons, and
the sides and base of each cell are also polygons.

Computer graphics
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In computer graphics, a polygon is a primitive used in modelling and rendering. They are
defined in a database, containing arrays of vertices (the coordinates of the geometrical
vertices, as well as other attributes of the polygon, such as color, shading and texture),
connectivity information, and materials.[37][38]

Naming conventions differ from those of mathematicians:[clarification needed (What is the difference?)]

 A simple polygon is convex, planar, more easily handled by algorithms and

hardware.
 a concave polygon is a simple polygon having at least one interior angle greater
than 180°.
 A complex polygon may have arbitrary topology including holes, requiring more
advanced algorithms (often systems will tesselate these into simple polygons).[citation
needed]
Any surface is modelled as a tessellation called polygon mesh. If a square mesh has n + 1
points (vertices) per side, there are n squared squares in the mesh, or 2n squared triangles
since there are two triangles in a square. There are (n + 1)2 / 2(n2) vertices per triangle.
Where n is large, this approaches one half. Or, each vertex inside the square mesh connects
four edges (lines).

The imaging system calls up the structure of polygons needed for the scene to be created
from the database. This is transferred to active memory and finally, to the display system
(screen, TV monitors etc.) so that the scene can be viewed. During this process, the
imaging system renders polygons in correct perspective ready for transmission of the
processed data to the display system. Although polygons are two-dimensional, through the
system computer they are placed in a visual scene in the correct three-dimensional
orientation.

In computer graphics and computational geometry, it is often necessary to determine

whether a given point P = (x0,y0) lies inside a simple polygon given by a sequence of line
segments. This is called the Point in polygon test.[citation needed]

See also
 Boolean operations on polygons
 Complete graph
 Constructible polygon
 Cyclic polygon
 Geometric shape
 Golygon
 List of polygons
 Polyform
 Polygon soup
 Polygon triangulation
 Precision polygon
 Synthetic geometry
 Tiling
 Tiling puzzle

References
Bibliography

 Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular Polytopes, Methuen and Co., 1948 (3rd Edition, Dover,
1973).
 Cromwell, P.; Polyhedra, CUP hbk (1997), pbk. (1999).
 Grünbaum, B.; Are your polyhedra the same as my polyhedra? Discrete and
comput. geom: the Goodman-Pollack festschrift, ed. Aronov et al. Springer (2003)
pp. 461–488. (pdf)
Notes

1.

 Craig, John (1849). A new universal etymological technological, and pronouncing

dictionary of the English language. Oxford University. p. 404. Extract of p. 404
  Kappraff, Jay (2002). Beyond measure: a guided tour through nature, myth, and
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  Bart Braden (1986). "The Surveyor's Area Formula" (PDF). The College Mathematics
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  A.M. Lopshits (1963). Computation of areas of oriented figures. translators: J
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  Hospers, John, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 4th ed, Routledge, 1997, p.
56, ISBN 0-415-15792-7.
  Mandik, Pete, Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind, Continuum International Publishing
Group, 2010, p. 26, ISBN 1-84706-349-7.
  Kenny, Anthony, The Rise of Modern Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2006, p.
124, ISBN 0-19-875277-6.
  Balmes, James, Fundamental Philosophy, Vol II, Sadlier and Co., Boston, 1856, p. 27.
  Potter, Vincent G., On Understanding Understanding: A Philosophy of Knowledge,
2nd ed, Fordham University Press, 1993, p. 86, ISBN 0-8232-1486-9.
  Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, reprint edition, Routledge, 2004, p.
202, ISBN 0-415-32505-6.
  Heath, Sir Thomas Little (1981), A History of Greek Mathematics, Volume 1, Courier
Dover Publications, p. 162, ISBN 978-0-486-24073-2. Reprint of original 1921 publication
with corrected errata. Heath uses the Latinized spelling "Aristophonus" for the vase
painter's name.
  Cratere with the blinding of Polyphemus and a naval battle Archived 2013-11-12 at
the Wayback Machine, Castellani Halls, Capitoline Museum, accessed 2013-11-11. Two
pentagrams are visible near the center of the image,
  Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular Polytopes, 3rd Edn, Dover (pbk), 1973, p. 114
  Shephard, G.C.; "Regular complex polytopes", Proc. London Math. Soc. Series 3
Volume 2, 1952, pp 82-97
  "opengl vertex specification".

38.  "direct3d rendering, based on vertices & triangles".

External links

Look up polygon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Polygons.

 Weisstein, Eric W. "Polygon". MathWorld.

 What Are Polyhedra?, with Greek Numerical Prefixes
 Polygons, types of polygons, and polygon properties, with interactive animation
 How to draw monochrome orthogonal polygons on screens, by Herbert Glarner
 comp.graphics.algorithms Frequently Asked Questions, solutions to mathematical
problems computing 2D and 3D polygons
 Comparison of the different algorithms for Polygon Boolean operations, compares
capabilities, speed and numerical robustness
 Interior angle sum of polygons: a general formula, Provides an interactive Java
investigation that extends the interior angle sum formula for simple closed polygons
to include crossed (complex) polygons

 v
 t
 e

Polygons (List)
 v
 t
 e

Fundamental convex regular and uniform polytopes in dimensions 2–10

E6 / E7 / E8
Family An Bn I2(p) / Dn Hn
/ F4 / G2
Regular
Triangle Square p-gon Hexagon Pentagon
polygon
Uniform Octahedron • Dodecahedron •
Tetrahedron Demicube
polyhedron Cube Icosahedron
Uniform 4- 16-cell • 120-cell • 600-
5-cell Demitesseract 24-cell
polytope Tesseract cell
Uniform 5- 5-orthoplex •
5-simplex 5-demicube
polytope 5-cube
Uniform 6- 6-orthoplex •
6-simplex 6-demicube 122 • 221
polytope 6-cube
Uniform 7- 7-orthoplex • 132 • 231 •
7-simplex 7-demicube
polytope 7-cube 321
Uniform 8- 8-orthoplex • 142 • 241 •
8-simplex 8-demicube
polytope 8-cube 421
 Uniform 9- 9-orthoplex •
9-simplex 9-demicube
polytope 9-cube
Uniform 10- 10-orthoplex
10-simplex 10-demicube
polytope • 10-cube
Uniform n- n-orthoplex • 1k2 • 2k1 • n-pentagonal
n-simplex n-demicube
polytope n-cube k21 polytope
Topics: Polytope families • Regular polytope • List of regular polytopes and
compounds
Categories:

 Polygons
 Euclidean plane geometry

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