The document defines area and explains how to calculate the area of different shapes. It states that area measures the size of an enclosed region, usually in square units. To find the area of most shapes, you multiply the length by the width. It provides formulas for calculating the areas of rectangles, parallelograms, trapezoids, and triangles. For parallelograms and trapezoids, the base and height are used. For triangles, half the base times the height is used.