jmc

A rectangle with fixed perimeter has minimal area when one dimension is as long as possible and the other is as short as possible. To see this, let $x$ be the shorter dimension and $y$ the area of the rectangle, and note that $y=x(50-x)$. The graph of $y=x(50-x)$ is a down-turned parabola with vertex at $(25,625)$, and thus is as small as possible when $x$ is as small as possible. Since $x$ is an integer, its minimum value is 1. Thus the relevant rectangle with minimum area is 1 by 49. Its area is $49\cdot 1=\boxed{49}$ square units.