CHAPTER 3 : PLANE AND SOLID GEOMETRY CONCEPTS

Lesson 8: Polygons and its Applications

Definition 1: POLYGON
A polygon is a closed plane figure formed by line segments. Each side must intersect exactly two others
sides but only at their endpoints.

Parts of a Polygon:
1) Side/Edge – one of the line segments that make up a polygon. Adjacent sides are pairs of sides that share a
common endpoint.

2) Vertex – endpoint of each side of the polygon. Adjacent vertices are endpoints of a side.

3) Diagonal – line segment joining two non-adjacent vertices of the polygon.

4) Interior Angle – angle formed two adjacent sides inside the polygon.

5) Exterior Angle – angle that is adjacent to and supplementary to an interior angle of the polygon.

side or edge

Interior Diagonal Vertex

Angle
Exterior
Angle

A polygon can also be defined as a union of line segments such that each vertex is a common endpoint of two
adjacent line segments, no two adjacent line segments intersect except at an endpoint; and no two line segments with the
same endpoint are collinear.

Types of Polygons:
1) Equiangular Polygon – polygon with congruent angles.

2) Equilateral Polygon – polygon with congruent sides.

3) Regular Polygon – polygon that is equiangular and equilateral at the same time.

4) Irregular Polygon – polygon that is neither equiangular nor equilateral.

5) Convex Polygon – polygon with all of its interior angles less than 𝟏𝟖𝟎°. It also refers to a polygon in which a line
will intersect at most two points through it.

6) Concave Polygon – polygon with at least one interior angle that measures more than 𝟏𝟖𝟎°. It also refers to a
polygon in which a line will intersect more than two points through it.
Nomenclature of Polygons:
Polygons are named according to their number of sides. Generally, a polygon with n sides is called an n-gon.
To form the name of polygons with 13 to 99 sides, begin with the prefix for the tens digit, followed by kai (Greek
word for the word “and”) and the prefix for the units digit.

Sides Prefix and Sides (Ones Suffix

Digit)
20 icosi or icosa 1 hena
30 triaconta 2 di
40 tetraconta 3 tri
50 pentaconta 4 tetra
60 hexaconta kai + 5 penta
70 heptaconta 6 hexa
80 octaconta 7 hepta
90 enneaconta 8 octa
9 ennea
Number Name of the Polygon
of sides
n n-gon
3 Triangle or Trigon
4 Quadrilateral or Tetragon
5 Pentagon
6 Hexagon
7 Heptagon
8 Octagon
9 Nonagon or Enneagon
10 Decagon
11 Undecagon or Hendecagon
12 Dodecagon
13 Tridecagon or Triskaidecagon
14 Tetradecagon or Tetrakaidecagon
15 Pentadecagon or Pentakaidecagon
16 Hexadecagon or Hexakaidecagon
17 Heptadecagon or Heptakaidecagon
18 Octadecagon or Octakaidecagon
19 Enneadecagon or Enneakaidecagon
20 Icosagon
30 Triacontagon
40 Tetracontagon
50 Pentacontagon
60 Hexacontagon
70 Heptacontagon
80 Octacontagon
90 Enneacontagon
100 Hectogon or Hecatontagon
1,000 Chiliagon
10,000 Myriagon
1,000,000 Megagon
𝟏𝟎𝟏𝟎𝟎 Googolgon

For 100-999 sides, form the same name of the polygon by starting with the prefix for the hundreds digit taken from
the ones digit, affixing the word hecta, then following the rule on naming polygons with 3 to 99 sides. However, one
may use the form n-gon, as in 24-gon for a polygon with 24 sides, instead of using the above method.

Example1: A 78-sided polygon is called a heptacontakaioctagon. 70 and 8

heptaconta kai octagon

Example 2: A 962-sided polygon is called an enneahectahexacontakaidigon.

900 60 and 2
enneahecta hexaconta kai digon
Properties of a Regular Polygon:
A regular polygon of n sides can be subdivided into n congruent isosceles triangles, whose base is a side of
the polygon. The common vertex of these isosceles triangles is the center of the polygon.

1) Perimeter of a Regular Polygon – product of the length of a side (s) and the number of sides (n). That is, 𝑷 = 𝒏𝒔.

2) Central Angle of a Regular Polygon (𝜽) – angle opposite to a side of a polygon. It also pertains to the angle formed
by two lines from the center of the polygon to two adjacent vertices. Since a regular polygon is equiangular, then the
𝟑𝟔𝟎°
measure of each central angle is given by 𝜽 = , where n represents the number of sides.
𝒏

3) Apothem (a) – altitude of the isosceles triangles that can be formed from a regular polygon. It bisects the central
𝒔
angle and its opposite side. To measure the apothem, we apply the formula 𝒂 = 𝟏 .
𝟐𝒕𝒂𝒏( 𝜽)
𝟐

4) Interior Angle – the measure of each interior angle of a regular polygon can be computed by using the formula
𝟏𝟖𝟎°(𝒏−𝟐)
𝑰. 𝑨. = .
𝒏

5) Sum of Interior Angles – total measure of all interior angles in a polygon. It is calculated by the formula 𝑺. 𝑰. 𝑨. =
𝟏𝟖𝟎°(𝒏 − 𝟐).
6) Diagonal – line segment drawn from the vertex to a non-adjacent vertex. The total number of the diagonals of a
𝒏
regular polygon is given by 𝑫 = (𝒏 − 𝟑).
𝟐

7) Area (A) – amount of two-dimensional space that a plane figure occupies. To find the area of a regular polygon,
one can apply any of the two formulas:

𝟏 𝒏𝒔𝟐
(a) 𝑨 = 𝑷𝒂 (b) 𝑨 = 𝟏
𝟐 𝟒𝒕𝒂𝒏( 𝜽)
𝟐

Similar Polygons
Two polygons are similar if their corresponding interior angles are congruent and their corresponding sides
are proportional. Putting it simply, similar polygons have the same shape but may differ in size.

Consider the similar polygons below:

𝑥1
𝑦1 𝐴1 𝑦2 𝐴2 𝑥2

Using the concept of ratio and proportion, the following relations between polygons ABCD and PQRS are obtained:
𝒙𝟏 𝒚𝟏
a) The ratio of any two corresponding sides of similar polygons are equal, i.e., = .
𝒙𝟐 𝒚𝟐

𝑷𝟏
b) The ratio of the perimeters of similar polygons is equal to the ratio of any two corresponding sides. That is, =
𝑷𝟐
𝒙𝟏 𝑷𝟏 𝒚𝟏
or = .
𝒙𝟐 𝑷𝟐 𝒚𝟐

c) The ratio of the areas of similar polygons is equal to the square of the ratio of any two corresponding sides. That
𝑨𝟏 𝒙 𝟐 𝑨 𝒚 𝟐
is, = ( 𝟏 ) or 𝟏 = ( 𝟏 ) .
𝑨𝟐 𝒙𝟐 𝑨𝟐 𝒚𝟐
Applications of Regular Polygon
1) Name each polygon with the given number of sides.

(a) 39 (e) 47 (i) 653

(b) 181 (f) 175 (j) 88

(c) 82 (g) 291 (k) 500

(d) 3,120 (h) 7,432 (l) 1,659

2) How many sides does each polygon have? How many distinct diagonals can be drawn from a vertex of
each polygon?
(a) Icosikaihenagon (e) Trihectatriacontakaitrigon
(b) Enneacontakaidigon (f) Pentacontakaioctagon
(c) Octahectatetracontakaiheptagon (g) Heptacontakaiheptagon
(d) Pentachiliahexahectatriacontakaienneagon (h) Chiliatetrahectagon
3) The number of diagonals of a regular polygon is 35. Find the area of the polygon if its apothem measures 𝟏𝟎 𝒄𝒎.

4) The sum of the interior angles of a regular polygon is 𝟏, 𝟐𝟔𝟎°. Find the area of the polygon if its perimeter is
𝟒𝟓 𝒄𝒎.

5) The area of a regular octagonal room is 𝟓𝟏 𝒔𝒒. 𝒎. Find the length of its side.

6) The measure of an interior angle of a regular polygon is 𝟏𝟒𝟒°. Find the apothem if one side of the polygon
measures 𝟓 𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒔.

7) Find the number of sides of each of the two polygons if the total number of sides of the polygons is 𝟏𝟑, and the
sum of the number of diagonals of the polygons is 36.
8) What is the name of a regular polygon that has 135 diagonals?
9) Find the number of diagonals of a regular polygon whose interior angle measures 𝟏𝟒𝟒°.
10) Find the sum of the interior angles and the number of diagonals of a regular polygon whose central
angle measures 𝟔°.
11) The ratio of areas between two similar triangles is 1:4. If one side of the smaller triangle is 𝟐 𝒇𝒕., find the
measure of the corresponding side of the other triangle.

12) One side of a polygon measures 𝟏𝟎 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒔. If the measure of the corresponding sides of a similar polygon is
𝟔 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒔, find the ratio of their areas. What is the area of the larger polygon if the area of the smaller polygon is
𝟏𝟐 𝒔𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒔?

13) Find the area of a regular hexagon whose perimeter is 𝟒𝟖 𝒎.

14) What is the area of a regular hexagon if its perimeter is 𝟏𝟐 𝒄𝒎?

15) A grassy plot has the shape of a regular hexagon each side 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝒎. Within the plot and along its sides, a
foot path is made 𝟒 𝒎 wide all around. Find the area of the grassy plot left within.