A time series chart displays data points in chronological order, which makes it a common way to show change over time. Line charts, bar charts, and area charts are the most commonly used time series charts for this purpose.

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Multiple types of charts can be suitable for depicting data. Guidelines provide insight into how to choose one chart over another.

Selecting Charts

Showing change over time

Area charts come in several varieties, including stacked area charts and overlapped area charts:

Stacked area charts show multiple time series (over the same time period) stacked on top of one another
Overlapped area charts show multiple time series (over the same time period) overlapping one another
Overlapping area charts are not recommended with more than two time series, as doing so can obscure the data. Instead, use a stacked area chart to compare multiple values over a time interval (with time represented on the horizontal axis).

Area charts

Bar charts and pie charts can both represent proportion, a partial value compared to a total value. Bar charts encode proportion using a bar's length measured from a shared baseline, while pie charts encode proportion using the arc or angle of a circle segment. Because bar charts, line charts, and stacked area charts all share a common baseline, they make value differences easier to compare precisely, so they are more effective than pie charts for showing change over time.

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