Stacked Area

Stacked area charts are like stacked bar charts, but for showing patterns over time. They demonstrate part-to-whole patterns, like the number of Jews, Christians, and Muslims residing in a country during a given time span.

In theory, they’re excellent graphs. In practice, be careful that they don’t look too cluttered or complicated.

Examples

• People attending two-year and four-year colleges have steadily risen
• A record 170,000 migrants entered Italy via the Mediterranean Sea last year
• Religious composition of the United States, 2010 vs. 2015
• Number of illegal immigrants in the United States, Mexican vs. other groups, 1995 through 2012

• Slope
• All
• Area