27 square centimeters...the 5 squares are identical and it has an area that is 45 squared centimeters, actually that part was just a trickster part, the real problem is when you remove squares which is on both sides, you basically remove 2 squares... thus resulting to 3 squares remaining which has a 24 centimeter perimeter, (obviously because there's no squared word or symbol) you then divide 24 by 8 because the 3 squares placed side by side will result to 8 parts oph that square showing outside... then the quotient would be 3 and you multiply it by 3 in order to get the length, which results to 9, the multiply it to 3 which is it's width and the answer is 27 square centimeters!