3 Bar charts

Last week, you saw data from Fáilte Ireland presented in tables. On their website they also illustrate other data in the form of bar charts, as shown in Figure 14 below. This represents the numbers of visitors participating in different activities.

Fáilte Ireland (2004)

Figure 14 Bar chart from Fáilte Ireland showing the numbers of visitors participating in different activities.

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This is an example of a horizontal bar chart. The title reads ‘What activities did they engage in? (000s).’ The horizontal axis has a scale marked 0, 50, 100, 150, 200 at equal intervals. The vertical axis shows the different activities: equestrian, golf, cycling, angling, hiking/hill walking and cruising. A horizontal bar is drawn opposite each activity to represent the number of people engaging in each activity. The bars are separated from each other by a small gap. The length of each bar can be measured from the scale below although the length is also displayed at the end of each bar as follows: equestrian 29; golf 134; cycling 100; angling 83; hiking/hill walking 168; cruising 22. A dotted arrow stretches from the right-hand end of the cycling bar vertically down to the horizontal axis, intersecting the axis at 100.

Figure 14 Bar chart from Fáilte Ireland showing the numbers of visitors participating in different activities.

In a bar chart, the length of each bar represents the number in that category. Because the bars on this chart are horizontal, the chart is known as a horizontal bar chart. However, bar charts can also be drawn with vertical bars. Note that each bar has the same width, and since the bars represent different and unrelated categories, the bars do not touch each other and are separated by gaps.

The authors of this chart have made it easy to read as they’ve marked the values represented by each bar directly on the chart. If the values had not been marked on the bars, they could have been estimated by drawing a line from the end of the bar and seeing where it intersected the horizontal axis, just as you did with the line graph.

So, rather than spending time on reading from a bar chart let’s move on to constructing one.