Solid figures

Solid figures are three-dimensional figures that have length, width and height. See some examples of three-dimensional figures below.

A prism is a polyhedron with exactly two faces that are congruent and parallel. These faces are called bases.

Other faces are called lateral faces. Some examples of prisms are rectangular prisms, triangular prisms, pentagonal prisms, hexagonal prisms, etc....

A polyhedron is a three-dimensional figure whose surfaces are polygons.

A rectangular prism is shown above. Notice that the rectangular prism is made of two parallel faces that are polygons. These parallel faces are rectangles in this case and they are congruent. Looking at the figure, the bases are the top and bottom base.The other four faces are called lateral faces.

A triangular prism is shown below. It is a prism with two triangular faces that are congruent. The other three faces are rectangles and they are called lateral faces.

A cube is also a prism with congruent squares as bases (or sides) and lateral faces. The difference between a cube and a rectangular prism is that you can pick anything as your two faces since all the faces are congruent. The following figure is a cube.

A pyramid is a polyhedron in which one face, also called the base, can be any polygon. The other faces, also called lateral faces or triangular sides, are triangles that meet at a common vertex. The following figure is a pyramid.

A cone has a circular base connected to a vertex. Suppose the base of a pyramid is a regular polygon. You can turn the pyramid into a cone by continuously increasing the number of sides of the base of the pyramid. The following figure is a cone.

A cylinder has two congruent or equal circular bases that are parallel.The following figure is a cylinder.

A sphere is a figure with a curved surface in which all points on the surface are equal distance from the center.The following figure is a sphere.