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Column Chart

Column charts are used to compare categories with discrete data.

The columns’ lengths provide an excellent visual indicator for comparison. According to the chart, Russia and USA exported more than $6 billion of wheat in 2019, followed by Canada ($5.4B) and France ($4.4B).

Nice to know

Pros:
  1. •

    Column charts, like bar charts, are easy to create.

  2. •

    Column charts are popular and commonplace meaning that almost everyone can understand them.

  3. •

    Column charts work wonderfully with categorical data.

Cons:
  1. •

    Typically column charts are restricted to categorical data only (not versatile chart type).

  2. •

    Column charts can appear overcrowded quickly with too many columns displayed. Feel free to switch to bar charts if necessary.

Remark

For a better granularity, feel free to provide an interactive zooming capability or/and a fix labels on each column.

Accessibility

Keep in mind that you can always adapt your chart to an accessible chart in the case you are comparing multiple categories. You can either add a pattern fill chart or a or a monochrome chart.

Information

Learn more about how to create a column chart.