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Marimekko Chart / mosaic plot

Bar chart uses length of colored rectangle in the horizontal direction to visualize data, which is usually used to compare one dimensional data. Generally speaking bars in bar chart are aligned to the left and sorted descendingly from top to bottom; it can also align to bottom and sorted from left to right, in this case it is called Column Chart.

Best used with small dataset to precisely compare data along the axis, yet comparing to line chart there is no connection between bars so data can be sorted to give readers better information about the ranks.

Bars implicate the absolute size of data, so it is sometimes misleading when zooming into details which make the axis not starting from zero.

  • For comparing between data and finding the max/min entry.


Best chart to precisely and accurately compare between values. Also suitable for finding extreme values and rankings of values.

Work poorly with large dataset or periodic dataset. Become useless when data variation is small comparing to the value itself.

  • origin of axis should start from zero
  • sort bars by data to provide more information for readers
  • works better with data where order is not applicable


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