Illustrated · 1 min
A parallelogram is defined as a quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel and congruent sides.
What shapes is a parallelogram composed of?
A parallelogram can be split into two triangles that are congruent, by
Keeping this in mind, is there a formula we could come up with to express the area of a parallelogram in terms of only its sides and angles?
Yes! Let in the diagram above. Then,
So the area of a parallelogram is equal to the product of two of its adjacent sides and the sine of their included angle, or for parallelogram with .