Library/Geometry/Solid geometry/Prism/Prism (other)

Prism (other)

Overview
Important

A prism is a polyhedron with two congruent, parallel polygonal bases and all other faces (lateral faces) are parallelograms. Prisms are classified by the shape of their base: for example, a pentagonal prism has pentagon bases.

Important properties

  • The two bases are congruent and parallel.

  • All lateral faces are parallelograms (often rectangles in right prisms).

  • The number of faces is equal to the number of sides of the base plus two.

  • The number of vertices is twice the number of sides of the base.

  • The number of edges is three times the number of sides of the base.