The lateral area is the area of the vertical faces, in case a prism has its bases facing up and down.
Let us look at the surface area of the prism formula The total surface area of a prism is the sum of lateral surface area and area of two flat bases. To find the surface area of any kind of prism we use the general formula. Finding the surface area of a prism means calculating the total space occupied by all the faces of that respective type of prism or the sum of the areas of all faces (or surfaces) in a 3D plane. The surface area of a prism refers to the amount of total space occupied by the flat faces of the prism.
