Bar graphs are the most common type of diagrams used for visualizing data. They are readily understood by those who are not used to reading charts. They are also simple and easy to make.
What is a horizontal bar graph?
The bars in a bar graph represent the frequencies for the given data. In a horizontal bar graph, the bars are drawn vertically. the data categories are plotted on the Y-axis and the frequencies are plotted on the X-axis. The horizontal bar graph is completely similar to a usual (vertical) bar graph in all other respects.
An example of a horizontal bar chart is shown below:
The above bar chart shows the sales made by a particular company in four years. The years are plotted on the y-axis whereas the sales are plotted on the X-axis. By looking at the above graph, we can easily understand how well the company performed in the course of four years. For example, we can see that the company recorded the highest sales in the year 2012.
How to make a horizontal bar chart?
1. A horizontal bar graph is drawn just like any other bar graph. Given data for a variable, we plot the categories of the data on the y-axis and the frequencies on the x-axis.
2. The width of the bars should be uniform throughout the diagram.
3. The gap between one bar and the other should be uniform throughout.
Watch this video to understand how you can draw a horizontal bar graph in excel:
Are vertical or horizontal bar graphs better?
Generally speaking, vertical bar graphs are considered to be better because if the bars are too long, they can fit easily on the page if the bars are drawn vertically. Also, vertical bar graphs look much more pleasing from a visual perspective. It is recommended that horizontal bar graphs should be drawn only for data with a small number of categories.
Other types of bar charts:
Some of the other types of bar charts are:
1. Stacked bar graphs.
2. Clustered bar graphs.
3. Percentage bar diagrams.
