The Complete Guide to Chart Types and Data Visualization

Bar chart

Compare values across categories side-by-side

Line graph

Show trends and change over a time period

Scatter plot

Reveal relationships and correlations between two variables

Pie chart

Display proportions of a whole as slices

Histogram

See how data is distributed across a range

Box plot

Summarize a dataset's spread and outliers at a glance

Area chart

Like a line chart, but emphasizes the volume below

Heatmap

Encode magnitude through color intensity across a grid

Donut chart

Show proportions with a hollow center for key metrics

Semi-circle donut chart

A half-donut gauge for showing progress or proportions

Waffle chart

A grid of cells showing proportions with countable units

Treemap

Visualize hierarchical data as nested rectangles by size

Sunburst chart

Multi-ring radial chart for hierarchical part-to-whole data

Icicle chart

Rectangular partition of hierarchical data by level

Circle packing

Nested circles showing hierarchy with organic proportional layout

Marimekko chart

Variable-width stacked bars for two-dimensional composition

Parliament chart

Hemicycle of dots showing seat distribution by party

Stacked bar chart

Show totals and composition across categories at once

Bubble chart

Show three variables at once — position plus bubble size

Violin plot

Reveal the full shape of a distribution, not just the summary

Sankey diagram

Trace flows between stages with width-proportional bands

Waterfall chart

Show how sequential gains and losses build to a total

Radar chart

Compare multiple variables on axes from a central point

Candlestick chart

Track open, high, low, and close prices over time

Column chart

Vertical bars for comparing categories with short labels

Grouped bar chart

Side-by-side bars to compare sub-groups within categories

Lollipop chart

A lighter bar chart — thin lines capped with dots

Bullet chart

Benchmark a value against a target and performance ranges

Dot plot

Positioned dots for minimal-ink categorical comparison

Dumbbell chart

Two connected dots showing the gap between paired values

Range chart

Show min-max spread per category with floating bars

Radial bar chart

Bar chart bent into a circle for compact, visual impact

Nightingale rose chart

Equal-angle wedges with area encoding, invented in 1858

Population pyramid

Back-to-back bars comparing two groups across ordered bands

Pictogram chart

Repeated icons make data tangible for any audience

Quadrant chart

Scatter plot split into four strategic classification zones

Wrapped bar graph

Bar chart wrapping onto multiple rows for many categories

Small multiples

A grid of identical charts, each showing a different data slice

Density plot

A smooth curve showing the probability distribution of a variable

Ridgeline plot

Stacked density curves comparing distributions across groups

Beeswarm plot

Every data point visible, nudged apart to avoid overlap

Strip plot

Raw data points along a single axis — the simplest dot chart

Jitter plot

Random noise spreads dots to reveal hidden data density

Raincloud plot

Density, box plot, and raw data combined in one view

Half-eye plot

Half-density curve with point-interval summary below

Dot-boxplot

Box plot with individual data points overlaid for transparency

Stem-and-leaf plot

Text-based chart that preserves exact values while showing shape

Radial histogram

Histogram wrapped around a circle for cyclical data

Spike histogram

Thin vertical lines replace bars for a cleaner, lighter look

ECDF plot

Cumulative step function — read percentiles directly

Q-Q plot

Compare quantiles to check if data follows a distribution

P-P plot

Compare cumulative probabilities — sensitive to center fit

100% stacked bar chart

Equal-length bars show proportional mix, not totals

Diverging stacked bar chart

Split at center to show positive vs negative sentiment

Icon array

Grid of icons with a highlighted subset showing proportion

Gauge chart

Speedometer dial showing a single value on a scale

Funnel chart

Tapered stages showing progressive drop-off in a process

Voronoi treemap

Organic polygon cells for visually striking hierarchies

Bubble treemap

Nested circles where area encodes value and nesting shows hierarchy

Correlogram

Matrix of pairwise correlations with colour-encoded strength

Connected scatter plot

Track how two variables co-evolve over time

Hexbin plot

Aggregate dense scatter data into hexagonal bins by density

Contour plot

Show density regions of bivariate data as topographic lines

Pair plot

Grid of every pairwise scatter with marginal distributions

Solar correlation map

Radial layout showing one variable's correlations with others

1D heatmap

Single row of colour-encoded cells showing magnitude across categories

Stacked area chart

Show how parts contribute to a total over time

Streamgraph

Flowing stacked layers centred around a middle axis

Sparkline

Tiny inline charts that show trends without axes or labels

Slope chart

Compare values at two points in time with angled lines

Bump chart

Track ranking changes over time with flowing lines

Step line chart

Show abrupt changes with horizontal-then-vertical steps

Spline chart

A smoothly curved line chart using spline interpolation

Horizon chart

Compact time series using colour bands and folding for dense comparison

Calendar heatmap

Daily values on a calendar grid colour-coded by intensity

Gantt chart

Horizontal bars on a timeline for project scheduling

Barcode chart

Thin vertical lines marking events along a time axis

Fan chart

Expanding bands showing forecast uncertainty over time

Cumulative flow diagram

Track work items across workflow stages over time

Lasagna plot

Stacked heatmap rows comparing many time series at once

Lexis diagram

Map demographic events across age and calendar time

DenseLines

Density heatmap from hundreds of overlapping time series

Alluvial diagram

Traces how group memberships shift across dimensions or time

Parallel sets

Multi-dimensional categorical exploration with ribbons

Double waterfall chart

Paired waterfalls comparing two decompositions side by side

Tree diagram

Classic node-link hierarchy from root to leaves

Dendrogram

Clustering tree with distance-encoded branch heights

Radial tree

Circular layout with root at center, leaves at periphery

Hyperbolic tree

Fish-eye focus+context for navigating huge hierarchies

Cone tree

3D hierarchy with children ringing each cone base

Indented tree

Outline-style hierarchy using indentation for depth

Organizational chart

Map roles and reporting lines in any organization

Flame chart

Time-ordered call-stack profiler visualization

Flame map

Merged flame graph showing aggregated CPU hotspots

Phylogenetic tree

Map evolutionary relationships among species or genes

Node-link diagram

Show entities as nodes and their relationships as connecting lines

Force-directed graph

Physics-based layout that clusters connected nodes together

Adjacency matrix

Grid encoding connections between every pair of nodes

Arc diagram

Nodes on a line with arcs showing connections above

Chord diagram

Circular layout showing flow magnitude between groups

Non-ribbon chord diagram

Thin-line chord variant for dense many-to-many networks

Hierarchical edge bundling

Bundle curved edges by hierarchy to reduce visual clutter

Force-directed edge bundling

Physics-based bundling that groups parallel edges together

Bipartite graph

Two distinct sets of nodes with edges only between sets

Hive plot

Radial axes position nodes by attribute for uniform layouts

Circular layout graph

Nodes on a circle with internal chord-like connections

Matrix diagram

Grid showing relationships between two sets of items

Ego network diagram

Focus on one node and its direct connections

BioFabric

Nodes as horizontal lines, edges as vertical segments

Circos plot

Circular genomics-inspired layout for complex relationships

Hypergraph visualization

Edges connecting more than two nodes simultaneously

Choropleth map

Color-coded regions showing data intensity across areas

Cartogram

Distort region sizes to encode a data variable

Dorling cartogram

Replace regions with proportionally sized circles

Demers cartogram

Replace regions with proportionally sized squares

Non-contiguous cartogram

Shrink or grow regions in place without touching neighbors

Tile grid map

Equal-sized tiles arranged to approximate geography

Bivariate tile grid map

Two data variables encoded in each tile via color mixing

Dot density map

One dot per unit to show spatial distribution patterns

Proportional symbol map

Scale symbols by data value at each map location

Bubble map

Circles sized by data value placed at geographic locations

Spike map

Vertical spikes whose height encodes magnitude at each point

Flow map

Lines of varying width showing movement between locations

Connection map

Arc lines linking locations to show relationships on a map

Hexbin map

Hexagonal bins aggregating and color-coding geographic data

Isarithmic map

Contour lines or bands showing continuous data across a surface

Geographic heat map

Color gradients showing intensity across a geographic surface

Dasymetric map

Refined choropleth using ancillary data for accurate density

Value-by-alpha map

Color encodes value, transparency encodes confidence

Prism map

3D extruded regions where height encodes a data variable

Space-time cube

3D cube with geography on X-Y and time on the Z axis

Voronoi map

Thiessen polygons partitioning space by nearest point

Necklace map

Glyphs arranged along a curve following a region’s outline

Forest plot

Effect sizes and confidence intervals from multiple studies

Funnel plot

Detect publication bias in meta-analyses

ROC curve

True positive vs false positive rate across thresholds

Precision-recall curve

Precision vs recall trade-off for imbalanced data

Bland-Altman plot

Agreement between two measurement methods

Control chart

Monitor process stability with upper and lower limits

CUSUM chart

Cumulative sum of deviations to detect small shifts

EWMA chart

Weighted moving average with narrowing control limits

Pareto chart

Rank causes by frequency with cumulative percentage line

Galbraith plot

Assess heterogeneity across studies in meta-analysis

L'Abbé plot

Compare treatment vs control event rates across studies

Caterpillar plot

Rank random effects with their confidence intervals

Dot-and-whisker plot

Display regression coefficients with confidence intervals

Calibration plot

Compare predicted probabilities against observed outcomes

Response surface plot

Map how a response changes across two factor variables

OHLC chart

Show open, high, low, and close with tick marks on vertical bars

Heikin-Ashi chart

Smoothed candlesticks using averaged values to reveal trends

Kagi chart

Thick and thin lines showing supply and demand shifts over price

Renko chart

Fixed-size bricks showing price movement, ignoring time

Point-and-figure chart

Columns of X’s and O’s for pure price-driven analysis

Three line break chart

Reversal blocks triggered by exceeding three prior lines

EquiVolume chart

Encode price range as height and volume as width in one shape

Range bar chart

Uniform-range bars that form only on fixed price movement

Manhattan plot

Map genomic significance across chromosomes in GWAS studies

Volcano plot

Show fold change vs. significance for differential expression

MA plot

Compare log-ratio vs. mean intensity for normalization QC

Kaplan-Meier curve

Step-function showing survival probability over time

Sequence logo

Letter-height bars encoding information at each sequence position

Ternary plot

Plot three variables that sum to a constant on a triangle

Piper diagram

Dual ternary + diamond showing water chemistry composition

Durov diagram

Extended Piper with TDS and pH axes for water classification

Recurrence plot

Binary matrix revealing recurring states in time-series data

Phase portrait

Trajectories in state space showing dynamical system behavior

Poincaré plot

Lag-1 scatter plot of successive values for HRV and time series

Venn diagram

Overlapping circles showing all logical set relationships

Euler diagram

Set diagram showing only existing relationships, no empty zones

UpSet plot

Matrix + bar chart for scalable multi-set intersection analysis

Kelp diagram

Colored bands showing how set memberships evolve over time

Parallel coordinates plot

Explore multivariate data with parallel vertical axes and polylines

Star plot

Compact radial glyphs showing one data record per star shape

Chernoff faces

Map multivariate data to facial features for pattern detection

RadViz

Spring-mass projection of multivariate data onto a circle

Star coordinates

Interactive linear projection with draggable direction vectors

Mosaic plot

Tile areas show proportions in categorical contingency tables