page_title: Polygon
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Polygon / History
caption_attribution_description: Original image description from the Deutsche Fotothek Geometrie &amp; Dreieck &amp; Viereck &amp; Vieleck &amp; Winkel
context_page_description: In geometry, a polygon is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain or polygonal circuit. The solid plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two together, may be called a polygon.
  The segments of a polygonal circuit are called its edges or sides, and the points where two edges meet are the polygon's vertices or corners. The interior of a solid polygon is sometimes called its body. An n-gon is a polygon with n sides; for example, a triangle is a 3-gon.
  A simple polygon is one which does not intersect itself. Mathematicians are often concerned only with the bounding polygonal chains of simple polygons and they often define a polygon accordingly. A polygonal boundary may be allowed to cross over itself, creating star polygons and other self-intersecting polygons.
  A polygon is a 2-dimensional example of the more general polytope in any number of dimensions. There are many more generalizations of polygons defined for different purposes.
context_section_description: Polygons have been known since ancient times. The regular polygons were known to the ancient Greeks, with the pentagram, a non-convex regular polygon (star polygon), appearing as early as the 7th century B.C. on a krater by Aristophanes, found at Caere and now in the Capitoline Museum.
  The first known systematic study of non-convex polygons in general was made by Thomas Bradwardine in the 14th century.
  In 1952, Geoffrey Colin Shephard generalized the idea of polygons to the complex plane, where each real dimension is accompanied by an imaginary one, to create complex polygons.
caption: Historical image of polygons (1699)
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