Introduction

Area charts are perfect for representing trends and patterns over time. Similar to line charts but with the area below the line filled in, they make it easy to visualize the volume or magnitude of your data.

Their visual impact is significant, with the filled areas highlighting the magnitude of changes. Stacked area charts offer a straightforward way to compare different data series.

Widely used in business, finance, and various fields of research, area charts provide clear and impactful visualizations of trends and patterns.

Anatomy of an area chart

In a typical area chart, the X axis often represents time, while the Y axis shows the measured values. Like in a line chart, our data points are connected with a continuous line. But, the space below the line is filled with color.

Area charts can display multiple data series stacked on top of each other.

The filled areas highlight the overall volume of the data, making area charts ideal for showing cumulative data.

Flourish area charts

With Flourish, you can create an area chart for free by simply uploading a spreadsheet. Customize the color and opacity of lines and areas, add annotations or custom popups, and include filter controls to let your viewers explore a rich dataset.

The interactive color legend makes it simple to filter out categories from your visualization.

In story mode, your area charts can smoothly transition between each other with features like axis movement, time sliders, and advanced filters.

You can also take advantage of small multiples to create a series of smaller area charts, enabling clear comparisons of trends and patterns across different subsets of your data. This feature helps your audience spot similarities and differences at a glance.

Types of area charts

Flourish offers various starting points for creating different types of area charts:

Stacked area charts layer data series on top of each other, visually emphasizing how individual components contribute to the whole over time. This makes them great for showing cumulative totals. In contrast, unstacked area charts plot each data series independently, allowing for easy comparison between individual trends.

If you choose a chart type but later decide to switch, there’s no need to worry. With just a quick selection from the dropdown menu, you can easily transition to a different chart in the Flourish preview window.

Use cases

• Illustrating the rise and fall of various data series over time
• Displaying total amounts over time with sub-categorical breakdowns
• Highlighting a part-to-whole relationship over time, especially when one part is significantly large or changes dramatically

Data structure

In Flourish, you can easily create area charts without coding – all you need to do is upload a CSV or an Excel sheet with your data.

To make a simple area chart, you only need two columns of data. The first column A should contain time intervals, like years or days.

Your following columns, for example B-C will then represent different data series that you want to track over time. They will become your stacked areas.

Resources

Here are some resources to help you get started with area charts:

• Line, bar and pie charts – an overview
  
• How to create an area bump chart
  
• How to create textured bar, column and area charts