What Is the Difference Between a Cube and a Cuboid?

A cube is a six-faced, three-dimensional figure composed of square-shaped faces of the same size that meet at 90-degree angles, whereas a cuboid is a box-shaped object made of six faces that all meet at 90-degree angles. A cuboid shape can also be a cube if all sides are the same length, but not all cuboids are cubes. Cubes and cuboids contain eight vertices and 12 edges.

A cuboid shape has three pairs of rectangular faces placed opposite of each other. Opposite faces are exactly the same. Two of the six faces of a cuboid shape can be squares. Cuboids are also called right prisms, rectangular parallelepipeds and rectangular boxes. The volume of a cuboid is described by the formula “a*b*c” where “a,” “b” and “c” are the lengths of each side. The surface area of a cuboid is “2(a*b + b*c + c*a)” where each letter is a side length.

A cube is a Platonic solid also known as a regular hexahedron. The surface area of a cube is delineated by the formula “6*a^2,” where “a” is the length of a side. The volume of a cube is “a^3.”

Examples of cuboid shapes include boxes, doors and mattresses. Cuboids can be flattened into six two-dimensional rectangles.