R Bar Charts

Bar Charts

A bar chart uses rectangular bars to visualize data. Bar charts can be displayed horizontally or vertically. The height or length of the bars are proportional to the values they represent.

Use the barplot() function to draw a vertical bar chart:

Example

# x-axis values
x <- c("A", "B", "C", "D")

# y-axis values
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)

barplot(y, names.arg = x)

Result:

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Example Explained

• The x variable represents values in the x-axis (A,B,C,D)
• The y variable represents values in the y-axis (2,4,6,8)
• Then we use the barplot() function to create a bar chart of the values
• names.arg defines the names of each observation in the x-axis

Bar Color

Use the col parameter to change the color of the bars:

Example

x <- c("A", "B", "C", "D")
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)

barplot(y, names.arg = x, col = "red")

Result:

Try it Yourself »

Density / Bar Texture

To change the bar texture, use the density parameter:

Example

x <- c("A", "B", "C", "D")
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)

barplot(y, names.arg = x, density = 10)

Result:

Try it Yourself »

Bar Width

Use the width parameter to change the width of the bars:

Example

x <- c("A", "B", "C", "D")
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)

barplot(y, names.arg = x, width = c(1,2,3,4))

Result:

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Horizontal Bars

If you want the bars to be displayed horizontally instead of vertically, use horiz=TRUE:

Example

x <- c("A", "B", "C", "D")
y <- c(2, 4, 6, 8)

barplot(y, names.arg = x, horiz = TRUE)

Result:

Try it Yourself »