AREAS

Returns the number of areas in a reference. An area is a range of contiguous cells or a single cell.

Syntax

AREAS(reference)

Reference is a reference to a cell or range of cells and can refer to multiple areas. If you want to specify several references as a single argument, then you must include extra sets of parentheses so that Microsoft Excel will not interpret the comma as a field separator. See the following example.

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

Show How?

Create a blank workbook or worksheet.
Select the example in the Help topic. Do not select the row or column headers.

Selecting an example from Help
Press CTRL+C.
In the worksheet, select cell A1, and press CTRL+V.
To switch between viewing the results and viewing the formulas that return the results, press CTRL+` (grave accent), or on the Tools menu, point to Formula Auditing, and then click Formula Auditing Mode.

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A	B
Formula	Description (Result)
=AREAS(B2:D4)	Number of areas in the range (1)
=AREAS((B2:D4,E5,F6:I9))	Number of areas in the range (3)
=AREAS(B2:D4 B2)	Number of areas in the range (1)