The length of a rectangle is three times its width. The perimeter is 160 cm. What is the number of square centimeters in the area of the rectangle?
Let the length of the rectangle be $l$ and the width be $w$. We are trying to find the area of the rectangle, or $l \cdot w$, so we need to first find both $l$ and $w$. We can set up the following system of equations to represent the given information:

\begin{align*}
l &= 3w \\
2l + 2w &= 160 \\
\end{align*}We will first solve for $w$ by eliminating $l$ from the equations above. Substituting the first equation into the second to eliminate $l$, we get $2(3w)+2w=160$ or $w=20$. Plugging this value into the first equation gives $l=3(20)=60$. Thus, the area of the rectangle is $l \cdot w = 60 \cdot 20 = \boxed{1200}$ square centimeters.