Cigars are sometimes described using two statistics: length and ring gauge. In the US, at least, the ring gauge is a number describing the diameter of the cigar's cross section and is enumerated in sixty-fourths of an inch - so a cigar with a 48 ring gauge is 48/64 of an inch, or 3/4 of an inch across. Note that some of the figuerado cigars (pyramid, torpedo, perfecto, culebras, etc.) will have irregular shapes, so their diameter will vary across the length of the cigar.
rootbeer277 asked the cogent question: "What happens to the ring gauge on a
figuerado?" I don't know if there is an 'official' answer, but I have seen a couple of different uses. On cigars with a circular cross-section that aren't cylindrical (
torpedo,
perfecto, etc.) I have seen the 'min/max' ring gauge given, such as a '24/50' ring gauge. I think for the more exotic shapes, like
pyramids or
culebras, it just isn't usually given - you're supposed to pretty much know, if you're asking for something that specialized. Note that this is an
assumption on my part - as I said, I haven't seen any 'official' word on the subject.