A polygon is a two-dimensional shape with straight edges and angles. It can be regular or irregular, convex or concave, and it can have any number of sides. Polygons are among the most basic shapes in geometry and they are essential for understanding more complex geometric concepts like circles, triangles, quadrilaterals, and other shapes.
Polygons have many uses in everyday life as well as mathematics. In architecture they form the structural bases of buildings; in engineering, they help to create bridges; while land surveyors use them to map out properties accurately by measuring distances between points on a flat surface using their sides and angles. They also appear frequently in artworks where artists use polygons to create 3D objects that look realistic when viewed from different perspectives due to their angular nature which adds depth perception when viewed from multiple directions at once.
In mathematics too polygons play an important role – particularly within geometry where students learn about its characteristics such as perimeter (the distance around its outside edge), area (the space enclosed inside), interior angle sum (the total amount of all internal angles added together), diagonals (lines connecting opposite corners )and much more. All this helps students understand how these simple shapes work together with each other so that we can build evermore complicated structures both aesthetically pleasing ones like skyscrapers and also those used for practical purposes such as roads.