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The area of a shape is the amount of space inside the shape.

To work out the area of shapes made of squares, we count the squares inside the shape.

 

Example

Calculate the area of this shape in cm2.

Each unit square is 1 cm by 1 cm.

 

                      Shape area

 

Answer

Count the squares.

                     Shape area

 

There are 7 squares.

Area is 7 cm2.

We read this as seven centimetres squared.

 

Remember

If the lengths are in metres, the area will be in m2.

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