Net of a Cylinder — free printable diagram

What the net of a cylinder looks like

A net is a 3D shape opened out flat, so that folding it back up rebuilds the solid. The net of a cylinder is one rectangle with a circle joined above it and another below. A cylinder has a curved surface, which is why its net does not look like a set of flat polygons the way a cube's does.

Solid

Cylinder

Net is made of

one rectangle with a circle joined above it and another below

Surfaces

2 flat circular surfaces + 1 curved surface

Is it a polyhedron?

No — it has a curved surface

• The rectangle wraps round to form the curved surface, so one of its sides has to be exactly as long as the circumference of the circle — 2πr. That is the step students most often miss when they draw a net that will not fold up.
• A cylinder is not a polyhedron, because a polyhedron's faces must all be flat. Some curricula still say a cylinder has 3 faces, counting the curved surface; others say 2 faces and 1 curved surface. Check which wording your syllabus uses.
• Because it is not a polyhedron, Euler's formula (faces + vertices − edges = 2) does not apply to a cylinder.
• The area of the net is the surface area of the solid: 2πr² for the two circles plus 2πrh for the rectangle.