16 times 17 is 272 — with the shortcut, the division facts and a drill to make it stick
16 × 17 = 272. That is the short answer, and it is the same answer whichever way round you write the two numbers. Below is where 272 comes from, the shortcut that gets you there without counting, the division facts that travel with it, and the fastest way to move it from "I can work it out" to "I just know it".
16 × 17 = 272. Said out loud in the way most classrooms say it: Sixteen seventeens are two hundred and seventy-two.
Multiplying is repeated addition, so 16 × 17 is sixteen seventeens added together, or equally seventeen sixteens added together. Both routes land on 272.
Written the other way round the answer does not change. 17 × 16 = 272 as well, because multiplication is commutative — the order of the two factors never affects the product. That halves how many facts you actually have to learn: get 16 × 17 and you have 17 × 16 for free.
Sixteen is two doubled four times, so you can double your way there: 17 → 34 → 68 → 136 → 272.
Because one of the factors is even, the answer has to be even. 272 is, so the parity check passes.
Every multiplication fact comes with a division fact on its back. These four all say the same thing about 16, 17 and 272: 16 × 17 = 272; 17 × 16 = 272; 272 ÷ 16 = 17; 272 ÷ 17 = 16.
Learning them as one family rather than four separate things is the single biggest shortcut in times-table practice. If you can answer "272 divided by 16" as fast as you can answer "16 times 17", the fact is genuinely learned rather than just recognised.
In the 16 times table, 272 is the seventeenth step: 16, 32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 144, 160, 176, 192, 208, 224, 240, 256, 272.
In the 17 times table it is the sixteenth step instead: 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, 102, 119, 136, 153, 170, 187, 204, 221, 238, 255, 272.
Seeing the same number arrive from two directions is what makes it stick. 272 is a landmark in both rows, so whichever table you are drilling you meet it again.
16 × 16 = 256, 16 × 18 = 288, 15 × 17 = 255, 17 × 17 = 289. Those are the answers people most often give by accident when they are a beat too quick.
The gap between neighbours is worth knowing on its own: each extra sixteen adds 16 to the running total, and each extra seventeen adds 17. So if 16 × 17 = 272 is solid, you can reach 16 × 18 by adding 16 rather than starting again.
Recognising a fact and recalling it under time pressure are different skills. A fact you can work out in four seconds still costs you four seconds every time it appears inside a longer calculation.
Short daily bursts beat long sessions: a 60-second drill every day will fix a table faster than one twenty-minute sitting a week. Mix the fact you are learning in among ones you already know so recall is being tested, not the order of a list.
16 times 17 is 272. In words, sixteen seventeens are two hundred and seventy-two.
17 times 16 is also 272. Swapping the two factors never changes the answer, so 17 × 16 and 16 × 17 both come to 272.
272 ÷ 16 = 17, because 16 × 17 = 272. The matching fact is 272 ÷ 17 = 16.
Sixteen is two doubled four times, so you can double your way there: 17 → 34 → 68 → 136 → 272.
Yes. 272 is the seventeenth number in the 16 times table, and the sixteenth number in the 17 times table.
Every multiplication fact from 2 × 2 to 20 × 20 has its own page here, and the full grid is on the multiplication chart.