Cylinders – Two Circles Joined by a Curved Surface

A cylinder is a solid with two identical, parallel flat circular faces, joined by one curved surface that wraps all the way around. Unlike the flat-faced solids you've just met (cubes, cuboids, prisms, pyramids), a cylinder has no straight edges connecting its two circular ends – and because it has no sharp corners at all, it has zero vertices.

You can think of a cylinder as a “circular prism” – it behaves just like a prism (uniform cross-section along its length), except its cross-section is a circle rather than a polygon, so the usual prism face/edge/vertex-counting rules don't quite apply the same way.

Properties of a Cylinder

Real-Life Application

• Cans: soft drink and food cans are cylinders.
• Pipes: plumbing and drainage pipes are cylindrical.
• Batteries: most household batteries are cylinder-shaped.

Key Takeaways

Practice: Cylinders