{"id":23605,"date":"2023-04-12T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T10:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/?p=23605"},"modified":"2026-01-13T11:30:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:30:56","slug":"when-to-use-bar-chart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/best-practices\/when-to-use-bar-chart\/","title":{"rendered":"When to use a bar chart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A bar chart, also known as a bar graph, is a visual representation of data that uses rectangular bars to represent different categories or groups. The length or height of each bar is proportional to the value it represents.<br \/>\nBar charts are commonly used to display categorical data:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/chartchooser\/bar-chart\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A trend of categorical data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/chartchooser\/bar-categorical-distribution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Distribution of categorical data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/chartchooser\/bar-categorical-comparison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A comparison of categorical data<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><i><b>Remark<\/b><br \/>\nIf you are not familiar with data types, feel free to check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/tutorials\/continuous-data-type-101\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Continuous Data Type 101<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/tutorials\/categorical-data-type-101\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Categorical Data Type 101<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<h2>When a bar chart is used<\/h2>\n<h3>Trends<\/h3>\n<p>The chart below (a bar chart race) displays the world population by country from 1960 to 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"demo-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"1100px\"  width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/samples\/embed\/highcharts\/demo\/bar-race\" title=\"Example of Bar Chart Race chart\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Distribution<\/h3>\n<p>The demo below visualizes the distribution of the Danish population in 2019:<\/p>\n<p class=\"demo-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"525px\"  width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.highcharts.com\/demos\/samples\/embed\/highcharts\/chartchooser\/categorical-distribution-bar\" title=\"Example of\n Bar Chart chart\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Comparison<\/h3>\n<p>The bars&#8217; length provides an excellent visual for comparison. According to the chart below, in 2018, Austria had the most significant organic farming area shares in Europe at 24.1%, Estonia at 20.6%, and Sweden at 20.6%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"demo-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"470px\"  width=\"100%\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.highcharts.com\/demos\/samples\/embed\/highcharts\/chartchooser\/categorical-comparison-bar\" title=\"Example of\n Bar Chart chart\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Overall, a bar chart is helpful for presenting and analyzing categorical data clearly and concisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn when to use a bar chart with Highcharts to display trends, distribution, and comparison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":23617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"meta_title":"","meta_description":"","hc_selected_options":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1104],"tags":[1063,1094],"coauthors":[699],"class_list":["post-23605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-practices","tag-data-visualization","tag-highcharts-core"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29384,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23605\/revisions\/29384"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23605"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.highcharts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=23605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}