Parallelogram

In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple (non-self-intersecting)

quadrilateral with two pairs of parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a Parallelogram
parallelogram are of equal length and the opposite angles of a parallelogram are of
equal measure. The congruence of opposite sides and opposite angles is a direct
consequence of the Euclidean parallel postulate and neither condition can be proven
without appealing to the Euclidean parallel postulate or one of its equivalent
formulations.

By comparison, a quadrilateral with just one pair of parallel sides is a trapezoid in

American English or a trapezium in British English.
This parallelogram is a rhomboid as
The three-dimensional counterpart of a parallelogram is a parallelepiped. it has no right angles and unequal
sides.
The etymology (in Greek παραλληλ-όγραμμον, parallēl-ógrammon, a shape "of
parallel lines") reflects the definition. Type quadrilateral,
trapezium
Edges 4
Contents and
vertices
Special cases
Symmetry C2, [2]+,
Characterizations group
Other properties Area b × h (base × height);
Area formula ab sin θ (product of
Area in terms of Cartesian coordinates of vertices adjacent sides and
Proof that diagonals bisect each other sine of the vertex angle
determined by them)
Lattice of parallelograms
Properties convex
Parallelograms arising from other figures
Automedian triangle
Varignon parallelogram
Tangent parallelogram of an ellipse
Faces of a parallelepiped
See also
References
External links

Special cases
Rhomboid – A quadrilateral whose opposite sides are parallel and adjacent sides are unequal, and whose
angles are not right angles[1]
Rectangle – A parallelogram with four angles of equal size (right angles).
Rhombus – A parallelogram with four sides of equal length.
Square – A parallelogram with four sides of equal length and angles of equal size (right angles).

Characterizations
A simple (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral is a parallelogram if and only if any one of the following statements is true:[2][3]

Two pairs of opposite sides are parallel (by definition).

 Two pairs of opposite sides are equal in length.
Two pairs of opposite angles are equal in measure.
The diagonals bisect each other.
One pair of opposite sides is parallel and equal in length.
Adjacent angles are supplementary.
Each diagonal divides the quadrilateral into two congruent triangles.
The sum of the squares of the sides equals the sum of the squares of the diagonals. (This is the
parallelogram law.)
It has rotational symmetry of order 2.
The sum of the distances from any interior point to the sides is independent of the location of the point.[4]
(This is an extension of Viviani's theorem.)
There is a point X in the plane of the quadrilateral with the property that every straight line through X divides
the quadrilateral into two regions of equal area.[5]

Thus all parallelograms have all the properties listed above, and conversely, if just one of these statements is true in a simple
quadrilateral, then it is a parallelogram.

Other properties
Opposite sides of a parallelogram are parallel (by definition) and so will never intersect.
The area of a parallelogram is twice the area of a triangle created by one of its diagonals.
The area of a parallelogram is also equal to the magnitude of the vector cross product of two adjacent sides.
Any line through the midpoint of a parallelogram bisects the area.[6]
Any non-degenerate affine transformation takes a parallelogram to another parallelogram.
A parallelogram has rotational symmetry of order 2 (through 180°) (or order 4 if a square). If it also has
exactly two lines of reflectional symmetry then it must be a rhombus or an oblong (a non-square rectangle). If
it has four lines of reflectional symmetry, it is a square.
The perimeter of a parallelogram is 2(a + b) where a and b are the lengths of adjacent sides.
Unlike any other convex polygon, a parallelogram cannot be inscribed in any triangle with less than twice its
area.[7]
The centers of four squares all constructed either internally or externally on the sides of a parallelogram are
the vertices of a square.[8]
If two lines parallel to sides of a parallelogram are constructed concurrent to a diagonal, then the
parallelograms formed on opposite sides of that diagonal are equal in area.[8]
The diagonals of a parallelogram divide it into four triangles of equal area.

Area formula
All of the area formulas for general convex quadrilaterals apply to parallelograms. Further
formulas are specific to parallelograms:

A parallelogram with base b and height h can be divided into a trapezoid and a right
triangle, and rearranged into a rectangle, as shown in the figure to the left. This means that
the area of a parallelogram is the same as that of a rectangle with the same base and height:

The base × height area formula can also be derived using the figure to the right. The area
K of the parallelogram to the right (the blue area) is the total area of the rectangle less the
area of the two orange triangles. The area of the rectangle is

A parallelogram can be
and the area of a single orange triangle is rearranged into a rectangle
with the same area.
Therefore, the area of the parallelogram is

Another area formula, for two sides B and C and angle θ, is

Animation for the area formula

The area of a parallelogram with sides B and C (B ≠ C) and angle at the intersection of
.
the diagonals is given by[9]

When the parallelogram is specified from the lengths B and C of two adjacent sides
together with the length D1 of either diagonal, then the area can be found from
Heron's formula. Specifically it is

The area of the parallelogram is the

area of the blue region, which is the
where and the leading factor 2 comes from the fact that the interior of the parallelogram
chosen diagonal divides the parallelogram into two congruent triangles.

Area in terms of Cartesian coordinates of vertices

Let vectors and let denote the matrix with elements of a and b. Then the area of the

parallelogram generated by a and b is equal to .

Let vectors and let . Then the area of the parallelogram generated by a and

b is equal to .

Let points . Then the area of the parallelogram with vertices at a, b and c is equivalent to the absolute value of
the determinant of a matrix built using a, b and c as rows with the last column padded using ones as follows:

Proof that diagonals bisect each other

To prove that the diagonals of a parallelogram bisect each other, we will use congruent
triangles:

(alternate interior angles are equal in measure)

(alternate interior angles are equal in measure).

(since these are angles that a transversal makes with parallel lines AB and DC).

Also, side AB is equal in length to side DC, since opposite sides of a parallelogram are
equal in length.

Therefore, triangles ABE and CDE are congruent (ASA postulate, two corresponding angles and the included side).

Therefore,
Since the diagonals AC and BD divide each other into segments of equal length, the diagonals bisect each other.

Separately, since the diagonals AC and BD bisect each other at point E, point E is the midpoint of each diagonal.

Lattice of parallelograms
Parallelograms can tile the plane by translation. If edges are equal, or angles are right, the symmetry of the lattice is higher.
These represent the four Bravais lattices in 2 dimensions.

Lattices
Form Square Rectangle Rhombus Parallelogram
Square Rectangular Centered rectangular Oblique
System
(tetragonal) (orthorhombic) (orthorhombic) (monoclinic)
Constraints α=90°, a=b α=90° a=b None

Symmetry p4m, [4,4], order 8n pmm, [∞,2,∞], order 4n p1, [∞+,2,∞+], order 2n

Form

Parallelograms arising from other figures

Automedian triangle

An automedian triangle is one whose medians are in the same proportions as its sides (though in a different order). If ABC is
an automedian triangle in which vertex A stands opposite the side a, G is the centroid (where the three medians of ABC
intersect), and AL is one of the extended medians of ABC with L lying on the circumcircle of ABC, then BGCL is a
parallelogram.

Varignon parallelogram

The midpoints of the sides of an arbitrary quadrilateral are the vertices of a parallelogram, called its Varignon parallelogram.
If the quadrilateral is convex or concave (that is, not self-intersecting), then the area of the Varignon parallelogram is half the
area of the quadrilateral.

Tangent parallelogram of an ellipse

For an ellipse, two diameters are said to be conjugate if and only if the tangent line to the ellipse at an endpoint of one
diameter is parallel to the other diameter. Each pair of conjugate diameters of an ellipse has a corresponding tangent
parallelogram, sometimes called a bounding parallelogram, formed by the tangent lines to the ellipse at the four endpoints of
the conjugate diameters. All tangent parallelograms for a given ellipse have the same area.

It is possible to reconstruct an ellipse from any pair of conjugate diameters, or from any tangent parallelogram.

Faces of a parallelepiped

A parallelepiped is a three-dimensional figure whose six faces are parallelograms.

See also
 Fundamental parallelogram (disambiguation)
Antiparallelogram

References
1. "CIMT - Page no longer available at Plymouth University servers" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20140514200449/http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.
uk/resources/topics/art002.pdf) (PDF). www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk.
Archived from the original (http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/resources/top
ics/art002.pdf) (PDF) on 2014-05-14.
2. Owen Byer, Felix Lazebnik and Deirdre Smeltzer, Methods for
Euclidean Geometry, Mathematical Association of America, 2010, pp.
51-52.
3. Zalman Usiskin and Jennifer Griffin, "The Classification of
Quadrilaterals. A Study of Definition", Information Age Publishing, 2008,
p. 22.
Proof without words of Varignon's
4. Chen, Zhibo, and Liang, Tian. "The converse of Viviani's theorem", The theorem:
College Mathematics Journal 37(5), 2006, pp. 390–391. 1. An arbitrary quadrilateral and its
5. Problem 5, 2006 British Mathematical Olympiad, [1] (http://artofproblems diagonals.
olving.com/downloads/printable_post_collections/5063). 2. Bases of similar triangles are
6. Dunn, J.A., and J.E. Pretty, "Halving a triangle", Mathematical Gazette parallel to the blue diagonal.
56, May 1972, p. 105. 3. Ditto for the red diagonal.
7. Weisstein, Eric W. "Triangle Circumscribing" (http://mathworld.wolfram.c 4. The base pairs form a
om/TriangleCircumscribing.html). Wolfram Math World. parallelogram with half the area of
the quadrilateral, Aq, as the sum of
8. Weisstein, Eric W. "Parallelogram." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web the areas of the four large triangles,
Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Parallelogram.html Al is 2 Aq (each of the two pairs
9. Mitchell, Douglas W., "The area of a quadrilateral", Mathematical reconstructs the quadrilateral) while
Gazette, July 2009. that of the small triangles, As is a
quarter of Al (half linear dimensions
yields quarter area), and the area of
External links the parallelogram is Aq minus As .

Parallelogram and Rhombus - Animated course (Construction,

Circumference, Area) (http://www.elsy.at/kurse/index.php?kurs=Parallel
ogram+and+Rhombus&status=public)
Weisstein, Eric W. "Parallelogram" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Parallelogram.html). MathWorld.
Interactive Parallelogram --sides, angles and slope (http://www.mathwarehouse.com/geometry/quadrilateral
s/parallelograms/index.php)
Area of Parallelogram (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry/AreaOfParallelogram.shtml) at cut-
the-knot
Equilateral Triangles On Sides of a Parallelogram (http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry/EquiTri
OnPara.shtml) at cut-the-knot
Definition and properties of a parallelogram (http://www.mathopenref.com/parallelogram.html) with animated
applet
Interactive applet showing parallelogram area calculation (http://www.mathopenref.com/parallelogramarea.h
tml) interactive applet

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parallelogram&oldid=1040877099"

This page was last edited on 27 August 2021, at 06:24 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree
to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit
organization.