Hexagon

A hexagon is a flat geometric shape with six straight sides, six vertices, and six interior angles. Like every polygon, it is a closed figure made from line segments. The sides of a hexagon do not have to be equal in length, and its angles can have different measures, so hexagons can take many forms. A hexagon is called convex when all its interior angles are less than 180 degrees.

If one part of the shape turns inward, it is called concave. The most familiar example is often the regular hexagon, whose six sides have the same length and whose six interior angles are equal. Each angle of a regular hexagon measures 120 degrees, and the sum of its interior angles is 720 degrees. The regular hexagon has several useful properties.

It has six lines of symmetry and remains unchanged when rotated by 60 degrees, or by any multiple of 60 degrees up to a full turn. Regular hexagons can also fit together edge to edge without leaving gaps, which is why hexagonal patterns appear in many natural and human-made structures.

Honeybee honeycombs are a well-known example: their cells have a roughly hexagonal shape, although real honeycomb cells are not perfectly identical geometric figures. Hexagons are also common in tiles, decorative patterns, engineering designs, games, and diagrams. Studying this shape helps children discover ideas such as sides, vertices, angles, symmetry, and repeating patterns.