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In geometry, a 'rectangle' is defined as a quadrilateral where all four of its angles are right angles.
From this definition, it follows that a rectangle has two pairs of parallel sides; that is, a rectangle is a parallelogram. A square is a special kind of rectangle where all four sides have equal length; that is, a square is both a rectangle and a rhombus. A rectangle that is not a square is colloquially known as an 'oblong'.
Normally, of the two opposite pairs of sides in a rectangle, the length of the longer side is called the ''length'' of the rectangle, and the length of the shorter side is called the ''width''. (Exception: For rectangular steel sheets, the rolling direction is called ''length'', even if it is the shorter side.)
The area of a rectangle is the product of its length and its width; in symbols, $A=lw$. For example, the area of a rectangle with a length of 5 and a width of 4 would be 20, because $5\; imes\; 4\; =\; 20$.
In a rectangle the diagonals cross each others at their respective midpoints, under the same argument as for parallelograms. And unlike general parallelograms the two diagonals of a rectangle have the same length, the length of the diagonal can be found using the Pythagorean theorem.
In calculus, the Riemann integral can be thought of as a limit of sums of the areas of arbitrarily thin rectangles.

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See also

★ Cuboid

★ Hyperrectangle

★ Rectangular function

External links

★ Animated course (Construction, Circumference, Area)

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★ Definition and properties of a rectangle With interactive animation

★ Area of a rectangle with interactive animation