Section 11.3: Surface Area of PYRAMIDS
Name:_______________________
Target Goals:
1. To find the surface area of a pyramid
2. To find the surface area of a cone
A little reminder…how do we find the surface area of a prism or cylinder?
The surface area of a PYRAMID is similar to those above, however it only has
ONE BASE and its LATERAL FACES are TRIANGLES. Let’s take a look…
A regular pyramid is…a pyramid whose base is a _________ ______________.
The slant height of a pyramid is…the height of each _______________ face (triangle).
Take a
…
The LATERAL AREA of a pyramid is…
L.A.=
1
pl
2
So the SURFACE AREA of a pyramid is…
1 
S.A.=  pl   B
2 
-OR-
S.A.=L. A.  B
EXAMPLE: Find the surface area of the hexagonal pyramid. Round to the
nearest tenth.
EXAMPLE: Find the surface area of a square pyramid with base edges 7.5 feet and slant height 12
feet. Round to the nearest tenth.
EXAMPLE: Find the LATERAL AREA of the hexagonal pyramid below. Round to the nearest tenth.
EXAMPLE: Find the SURFACE AREA of the pyramid below. Round to the nearest tenth.
REAL WORLD EXAMPLE! The Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt was build about 2580 BC as a final
resting place for Pharaoh Khufu. At the time it was built, its height was about 481 ft. Each edge of the
square base was about 756 ft long. What was the lateral area of the Great Pyramid?