Perimeter

The perimeter refers to the distance around the outside of a shape

The image above shows a rectangle, to find the perimeter of this rectangle, you add up the four lengths: 7+7+3+3=20

The shapes will not always be regular ones that we are familiar with.

Finding the perimeter of a compound shape:

For this example, we first need to know the lengths of every side. To find the length of x, we must do 20-8=12m. To find the length of y, we must do 15-5=10m.

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Now we can add up all of the sides to find the perimeter: 8+5+12+10+20+15=70m (don’t forget the units!)

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