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Column and Bar Charts

On this page

  • Column and Bar Chart Encoding Channels
  • Column and Bar Chart Types
  • Use Cases
  • Customization Options
  • Examples
  • Limitations

Column and bar charts plot data in either horizontal or vertical segments where the length of the segment is proportional to the data value. Column and bar charts provide high-level overviews of data trends by comparing values within a specific category.

Column and bar charts, except for the candlestick chart type, provide the following encoding channels:

Encoding Channel
Description
X / Y Axis
  • In the category axis encoding channel, a bar or column is rendered for each unique value from this field.

    In a column chart, the category is the X Axis, which results in vertical segments. In a bar chart, the category is the Y Axis, which results in horizontal segments.

  • The aggregation axis encoding channel dictates which field to aggregate on and the type of aggregation to perform. This ultimately dictates the size of each bar or column.

    Note

    You can aggregate upon multiple fields in your dataset to create multi-series charts. For more information, see Multiple Field Mappings.

Series

(Optional) A category encoding channel that segments the axis category based on the unique values in this field.

If omitted, Atlas Charts renders a basic bar or column chart with just a comparison of the X Axis and Y Axis fields.

Note

This option is only available for Grouped and Stacked charts with a single field mapped in the aggregation channel.

Color
(Optional) An aggregation encoding channel for Colored charts that changes the bars or columns' colors to reflect the aggregated value of the field, with darker colors meaning greater values.

Column and bar charts provide the following sub-types:

Sub-Type Name
Description

Atlas Charts groups data by the category specified in the category encoding channel, and plots a bar or column for each value in the Series encoding channel.

Grouped Column Chart Reference Small
click to enlarge

For a more detailed example, refer to the grouped column chart example.

Atlas Charts creates a bar or column for each distinct value in the category encoding channel field, and splits each bar or column into segments based on the the Series encoding channel.

Stacked Bar Chart Reference Small

For a more detailed example, refer to the stacked bar chart example.

100% stacked charts behave similarly to traditional stacked charts, with the difference that in a 100% stacked chart each bar or column is normalized to a consistent value of 100%. Just as with traditional stacked charts, each bar or column is split into segments based on the Series encoding channel. Each series is shown as a percentage of the whole.

When using a traditional stacked chart, it can be difficult to compare the proportions of each series to the whole if the total values of the bars / columns greatly differ. This type of chart makes it easier to compare proportions within each bar or column by showing relative percentages.

Note

You cannot customize the minimum, maximum, or logarithmic scale value axis options of 100% stacked charts.

Colored Bar Chart Reference Small
click to enlarge

For a more detailed example, refer to the 100% stacked bar chart example.

Atlas Charts creates a bar or column for each distinct value in the category encoding channel field, and the Color encoding channel changes the color of each bar / column based on the aggregated value of the value specified in the encoding channel.

Colored Bar Chart Reference Small
click to enlarge

For a more detailed example, refer to the colored bar chart example.

Atlas Charts groups numeric data by the time period specified in the category encoding channel, and plots a vertical column that shows the highest, lowest, opening, and closing values in your data source for each time period. To learn more, see Candlestick Charts.

Candlestick Chart Reference Small
click to enlarge

For a more detailed example, refer to the candlestick chart example.

Column and bar charts display information in similar manners and, as such, have similar use cases. There are, however, situations where it may be beneficial to use one over the other:

  • A bar chart may be a better choice than a column chart when the category labels are long, as it may be difficult to quickly pinpoint which label applies to which column.

  • A column chart may be a better choice when comparing sequential values (such as time or geographic data) because the viewer will intuitively read these charts from left to right and attain the full picture of the visualization.

Tip

Column and bar charts are best suited for data with limited categories. When plotting data with many categories, such as years across a long period of time, consider using a Line Chart.

You can also limit the number of categories displayed in your chart to focus on a subset of your data. Atlas Charts provides the following methods to reduce the number of bars or columns plotted in the visualization:

The following customization options are specific to column and bar charts. To see all available customization options, see Customize Charts.

You can adjust the X-axis label angle to one of the following options:

Option
Description
Vertical
Labels right-aligned at a 270 degree angle.
Horizonal
Labels center-aligned at a 0 degree angle.
Diagonal
Labels right-aligned at a 315 degree angle.

To set this option:

  1. Click the Customize tab for your chart.

  2. In the Axes section, select a Label Angle for the X Axis.

You can dictate whether Charts displays text labels for your data values. Data value labels show the exact values of your data points.

To set this option:

  1. Open the Customize pane for your chart.

  2. In the General section, set the Data Value Labels toggle switch to the desired setting.

To customize the formatting of the number in the data label, modify the Number Formatting settings for the relevant field.

Note

When used with stacked column and bar charts, data labels show the sum of all series in each column or bar.

The following grouped column chart shows the most common items sold from an office supply store across several store locations.

The X Axis category of storeLocation creates a group for each store location in the data set, and each group is split by the series column of item.name. This ultimately displays the count of each item's name sold at each store location:

Grouped Column Chart Reference
click to enlarge

The following stacked column chart shows the number of awards won by the top 10 highest award-winning movie directors, with each bar segmented by the genres of films directed by that director.

The X Axis category of director creates a column for each director in the data set, which we limit to only the top 10 as sorted by the aggregated sum of awards.wins from the Y Axis. The Series encoding channel field of genres segments each column to portray the genres of the films directed by that director:

Stacked Column Chart Reference
click to enlarge

The following 100% stacked bar chart visualizes the monthly cost of renting a home in three different suburbs of Austin, Texas, USA. Using a 100% stacked chart allows us to easily visualize the percentage of rental homes in each monthly_price bin within each neighborhood. This provides a clear picture of how these neighborhoods generally compare on rental prices.

This is the complete filter used for this chart:

{
$and: [
{ monthly_price:
{ $exists: true, $lte: 2000 }
},
{ 'address.suburb':
{ $in: ["Georgian Acres", "South Congress", "Wooten"] }
}
]
}

The Y Axis category channel creates a bar for each of the three suburbs in the filter. The X Axis channel aggregates to obtain a count of documents matching each respective suburb. The Series encoding channel of monthly_price splits each bar into categories colored according to the legend on the right side of the chart:

Colored Bar Chart Reference
click to enlarge

The following colored bar chart shows the average Rotten Tomatoes rating for countries with the 10 highest ratings, and colors each bar to show the average runtime for movies from each country.

The Y Axis category creates a bar for each country in the data set, which we limit to only the top 10 as sorted by the aggregated mean of the tomato.rating field from the X Axis. The Color encoding channel field of runtime colors each bar to show the average runtime for movies from each country. A darker shade of green indicates a longer average runtime:

Colored Bar Chart Reference
click to enlarge

The maximum query response size for column and bar charts is 5000 documents.

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