Charts

Area Chart

A bolder line chart designed to emphasize magnitude and cumulative totals.

What is an area chart?

Like a line chart, an area chart connects data points with lines, but it goes a step further by filling the region between the line and the x-axis with color or shading. This added visual element creates a stronger impression of magnitude and is especially useful for highlighting cumulative totals and the overall impact of a data series, providing a clear sense of how values build up over time.

WARNING: Due to the added visual weight of fills, many of the pitfalls of line charts (i.e too many lines) are amplified with area charts. You should strongly consider small multiples or stacked area charts as alternatives when comparing more than 3 groups.
Area charts excel at revealing differences in cumulative totals, clearly emphasizing the magnitude of values and trends over a continuous variable like time.
Default area chart
A chart to clearly communicate how the data builds up over time
Area chart showing the data over time.
Here are some amazing tips to help you create beautiful area charts

Chart properties

PropDefaultDescription
central tendencymean
mean
The sum of a set of values divided by the number of values in the set.
median
The middle most value of a sorted set of numbers.
pointsall
all
Show individual data points as dots.
leading
Show ONLY the leading data point as a dot.
false
Hide all individual data points.
linelinear
linear
Data points are connected by straight line segments.
curved
Data points are connected by curved line segments.
step before
Staircase-like line segments. The y-value changes before the x-value.
step after
Staircase-like line segments. The y-value changes after the x-value.

Line Chart

The easiest way to reveal trends and changes over time.

Stacked Area Chart

Perfect for showing the evolution of a data series over time.