We have learned how to calculate the areas of a square, rectangle, parallelogram, and circle. In this post, we are going to learn how to find the area of a trapezoid. This is the first post of Finding the Area of a Trapezoid Series.

A trapezoid is a polygon whose exactly one pair of sides are parallel*. The figure below is a trapezoid where sides a and b are parallel.

Notice that if we make another trapezoid which has the same size and shape as above, flip one trapezoid, and make one pair of the non-parallel sides meet, we can form the figure below. That figure is a parallelogram. Can you see why? Continue Reading