Pie chart

A pie chart (or a circle chart) is a circular statistical graphic which

is divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. In a pie
chart, the arc length of each slice (and consequently its central angle
and area) is proportional to the quantity it represents. While it is
named for its resemblance to a pie which has been sliced, there are
variations on the way it can be presented. The earliest known pie
chart is generally credited to William Playfair's Statistical Breviary
of 1801.[1][2]

Pie charts are very widely used in the business world and the mass
media.[3] However, they have been criticized,[4] and many experts
recommend avoiding them,[5][6][7][8] as research has shown it is
difficult to compare different sections of a given pie chart, or to Pie chart of populations of English
native speakers
compare data across different pie charts. Pie charts can be replaced
in most cases by other plots such as the bar chart, box plot, dot plot,
etc.

History
The earliest known pie chart is generally credited to William Playfair's Statistical Breviary of 1801, in
which two such graphs are used.[1][2][9] Playfair presented an illustration, which contained a series of pie
charts. One of those charts depicted the proportions of the Turkish Empire located in Asia, Europe and
Africa before 1789. This invention was not widely used at first.[1]

Playfair thought that pie charts were in need of a third dimension to add additional information.[10]

Florence Nightingale may not have invented the pie chart, but she adapted it to make it more readable,
which fostered its wide use, still today. Indeed, Nightingale reconfigured the pie chart making the length of
the wedges variable instead of their width. The graph, then, resembled a cock's comb.[11] She was later
assumed to have created it due to the obscurity and lack of practicality of Playfair's creation.[12]
Nightingale's polar area diagram,[13]: 1 07  or occasionally the Nightingale rose diagram, equivalent to a
modern circular histogram, to illustrate seasonal sources of patient mortality in the military field hospital she
managed, was published in Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration
of the British Army and sent to Queen Victoria in 1858. According to the historian Hugh Small, "she may
have been the first to use [pie charts] for persuading people of the need for change."[11]

The French engineer Charles Joseph Minard also used pie charts, in 1858. A map of his from 1858 used pie
charts to represent the cattle sent from all around France for consumption in Paris.

Early types of pie charts in the 19th century

Pie charts from William One of the earliest pie charts,
Playfair's "Statistical Breviary", 1801
1801

Minard's map, 1858 Polar chart by Florence

Nightingale, 1858

Variants and similar charts

3D pie chart and perspective pie cake

A 3D pie chart, or perspective pie chart, is used to give the chart a 3D look. Often used for aesthetic
reasons, the third dimension does not improve the reading of the data; on the contrary, these plots are
difficult to interpret because of the distorted effect of perspective associated with the third dimension. The
use of superfluous dimensions not used to display the data of interest is discouraged for charts in general,
not only for pie charts.[7][14]

Doughnut chart

A doughnut chart (also spelled donut) is a variant of the pie chart,

with a blank center allowing for additional information about the
data as a whole to be included. [15][16] Doughnut charts are similar
to pie charts in that their aim is to illustrate proportions. This type of
circular graph can support multiple statistics at once and it provides
a better data intensity ratio to standard pie charts.[16] It does not
have to contain information in the center.
Information on the data as a hole in
Exploded pie chart the center of a doughnut chart

A chart with one or more sectors

separated from the rest of the disk is known as an exploded pie chart. This
effect is used to either highlight a sector, or to highlight smaller segments of the
chart with small proportions.

Polar area diagram

Exploded pie chart for The polar area diagram is similar to a
the example data (see usual pie chart, except sectors have
below), with the largest equal angles and differ rather in how
party group exploded. far each sector extends from the center
of the circle. The polar area diagram is
used to plot cyclic phenomena (e.g.,
counts of deaths by month). For example, if the counts of deaths in "Diagram of the causes of mortality
each month for a year are to be plotted then there will be 12 sectors in the army in the East" by Florence
(one per month) all with the same angle of 30 degrees each. The Nightingale.
radius of each sector would be proportional to the square root of the
death rate for the month, so the area of a sector represents the rate of
deaths in a month. If the death rate in each month is subdivided by cause of death, it is possible to make
multiple comparisons on one diagram, as is seen in the polar area diagram famously developed by Florence
Nightingale.

The first known use of polar area diagrams was by André-Michel Guerry, which he called courbes
circulaires (circular curves), in an 1829 paper showing seasonal and daily variation in wind direction over
the year and births and deaths by hour of the day.[17] Léon Lalanne later used a polar diagram to show the
frequency of wind directions around compass points in 1843. The wind rose is still used by meteorologists.
Nightingale published her rose diagram in 1858. Although the name "coxcomb" has come to be associated
with this type of diagram, Nightingale originally used the term to refer to the publication in which this
diagram first appeared—an attention-getting book of charts and tables—rather than to this specific type of
diagram.[18]

Ring chart, sunburst chart, and multilevel pie chart

A ring chart, also known as a sunburst chart or a multilevel pie

chart, is used to visualize hierarchical data, depicted by concentric
circles.[19] The circle in the center represents the root node, with the
hierarchy moving outward from the center. A segment of the inner
circle bears a hierarchical relationship to those segments of the outer
circle which lie within the angular sweep of the parent segment.[20]

Spie chart

A variant of the polar area

chart is the spie chart,
designed by Dror Multi-level pie chart representing
Feitelson. [21] The design disk usage in a Linux file system
superimposes a normal pie
chart with a modified polar
area chart to permit the comparison of two sets of related data. The
base pie chart represents the first data set in the usual way, with
different slice sizes. The second set is represented by the
superimposed polar area chart, using the same angles as the base,
and adjusting the radii to fit the data. For example, the base pie
A spie chart comparing number of chart could show the distribution of age and gender groups in a
students with student costs across population, and the overlay their representation among road
four different schools casualties. Age and gender groups that are especially susceptible to
being involved in accidents then stand out as slices that extend
beyond the original pie chart.

Square chart / Waffle chart

Square charts, also called waffle charts, are a form of pie charts that
use squares instead of circles to represent percentages. Similar to
basic circular pie charts, square pie charts take each percentage out
of a total 100%. They are often 10 by 10 grids, where each cell
represents 1%. Despite the name, circles, pictograms (such as of
people), and other shapes may be used instead of squares. One
major benefit to square charts is that smaller percentages, difficult to
see on traditional pie charts, can be easily depicted.[22]

Square pie chart (waffle chart),

Example showing how smaller percentages
are more easily shown than on
The following example chart is based on preliminary results of the circular charts. On the 10x10 grid,
election for the European Parliament in 2004. The table lists the each cell represents 1%.
number of seats allocated to each party group, along with the
derived percentage of the total that they each make up. The values
in the last column, the derived central angle of each sector, Is found
by multiplying the percentage by 360°.

Group Seats Percent (%) Central angle (°)

EUL 39 5.3 19.2

PES 200 27.3 98.4

EFA 42 5.7 20.7

EDD 15 2.0 7.4 A pie chart for the example data

ELDR 67 9.2 33.0

EPP 276 37.7 135.7

UEN 27 3.7 13.3

Other 66 9.0 32.5

Total 732 99.9* 360.2*

*Because of rounding, these totals do not add up to 100 and 360.

The size of each central angle is proportional to the size of the corresponding quantity, here the number of
seats. Since the sum of the central angles has to be 360°, the central angle for a quantity that is a fraction Q
of the total is 360Q degrees. In the example, the central angle for the largest group (European People's
Party (EPP)) is 135.7° because 0.377 times 360, rounded to one decimal place, equals 135.7.

Use and effectiveness

A flaw exhibited by pie charts is that they cannot show more than a
few values without separating the visual encoding (the “slices”)
from the data they represent (typically percentages). When slices
become too small, pie charts have to rely on colors, textures or
arrows so the reader can understand them. This makes them
unsuitable for use with larger amounts of data. Pie charts also take
up a larger amount of space on the page compared to the more
flexible bar charts, which do not need to have separate legends, and
can display other values such as averages or targets at the same
time.[7]
3D pie chart showing Atmospheric
Statisticians generally regard pie charts as a poor method of
air components percentage
displaying information, and they are uncommon in scientific
literature. One reason is that it is more difficult for comparisons to
be made between the size of items in a chart when area is used
instead of length and when different items are shown as different shapes.[23]

Further, in research performed at AT&T Bell Laboratories, it was shown that comparison by angle was less
accurate than comparison by length. Most subjects have difficulty ordering the slices in the pie chart by
size; when an equivalent bar chart is used the comparison is much easier.[24] Similarly, comparisons
between data sets are easier using the bar chart. However, if the goal is to compare a given category (a slice
of the pie) with the total (the whole pie) in a single chart and the multiple is close to 25 or 50 percent, then a
pie chart can often be more effective than a bar graph.[25][26]
 In a pie chart with many
section, several values may
be represented with the
same or similar colors,
making interpretation
difficult.

Several studies presented at

the European Visualization
An example of a pie chart with 18
values, with some colors repeated
Conference analyzed the Three sets of percentages, plotted
relative accuracy of several as both piecharts and barcharts.
pie chart formats,[27][28][22] Comparing the data on barcharts is
reaching the conclusion that pie charts and doughnut charts produce generally easier.
similar error levels when reading them, and square pie charts
provide the most accurate reading.[29]

See also
Data and information visualization

References An example of a doughnut shape pie

chart, showing the batting and run
1. Spence (2005)
records of Indian cricket players in
2. Tufte, p. 44 test matches in 2019
3. Cleveland, p. 262
4. Wilkinson, p. 23.
5. Tufte, p. 178.
6. van Belle, p. 160–162.
7. Stephen Few. "Save the Pies for Dessert" (http://www.per
ceptualedge.com/articles/08-21-07.pdf), August 2007,
Retrieved 2010-02-02
8. Steve Fenton "Pie Charts Are Bad" (http://www.stevefent
on.co.uk/Content/Pie-Charts-Are-Bad/)
9. "Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography,
Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization" (http://www.
datavis.ca/milestones/index.php?group=1800+&mid=ms
89). www.datavis.ca.
10. Palsky, p. 144–145
11. Greenbaum, Hilary; Rubinstein, Dana (20 April 2012).
"Who Made That Pie Chart?" (https://www.nytimes.com/2
012/04/22/magazine/who-made-that-pie-chart.html). The
New York Times.
12. Dave article on this information on QI (http://uktv.co.uk/da
ve/article/aid/631002)
13. Cohen, I. Bernard (March 1984). "Florence Nightingale". Scientific American. 250 (3): 128–
137. Bibcode:1984SciAm.250c.128C (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984SciAm.250c.1
28C). doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0384-128 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fscientificamerica
n0384-128). PMID 6367033 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6367033). (alternative
pagination depending on country of sale: 98–107, bibliography on p. 114) online article –
see documents link at left (http://www.unc.edu/~nielsen/soci708/)
14. Good and Hardin, chapter 8.
15. Harris, Robert L. (1999). Information graphics : a comprehensive illustrated reference
([Nachdr.] ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 143. ISBN 9780195135329.
16. Data Design by Juergen Kai-Uwe Brock on iBooks (https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1178
532425). iBooks. Retrieved 2017-06-10.
17. Friendly, p. 509
18. "Florence Nightingale's Statistical Diagrams" (http://www.florence-nightingale-avenging-ang
el.co.uk/GraphicsPaper/Graphics.htm). Retrieved 2010-11-22.
19. "Multi-level Pie Charts" (http://www.neoformix.com/2006/MultiLevelPieChart.html).
www.neoformix.com.
20. Webber Richard, Herbert Ric, Jiangbc Wel. "Space-filling Techniques in Visualizing Output
from Computer Based Economic Models"
21. "Feitelson, Dror (2003) Comparing Partitions With Spie Charts" (http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~feit/
papers/Spie03TR.pdf) (PDF). 2003. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
22. Kosara, Robert; Skau, Drew (2016). "Judgment Error in Pie Chart Variations" (http://kosara.n
et/publications/Kosara-EuroVis-2016.html). EuroVis.
23. Krygier, John (28 August 2007). "Perceptual Scaling of Map Symbols" (http://makingmaps.ne
t/2007/08/28/perceptual-scaling-of-map-symbols/). makingmaps.net. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
24. Cleveland, p. 86–87
25. Simkin, D., & Hastie, R. (1987). An Information-Processing Analysis of Graph Perception.
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 82(398), 454. doi:10.2307/2289447 (https://d
oi.org/10.2307%2F2289447). Kosara, Robert (13 April 2011). "In Defense of Pie Charts" (htt
p://eagereyes.org/criticism/in-defense-of-pie-charts). Retrieved April 13, 2011.
26. Spence, Ian; Lewandowsky, Stephan (1 January 1991). "Displaying proportions and
percentages". Applied Cognitive Psychology. 5 (1): 61–77. doi:10.1002/acp.2350050106 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1002%2Facp.2350050106).
27. "An Illustrated Tour of the Pie Chart Study Results" (https://eagereyes.org/blog/2016/an-illust
rated-tour-of-the-pie-chart-study-results). eagereyes. 2016-06-28. Retrieved 2016-11-28.
28. Skau, Drew; Kosara, Robert (2016). "Arcs, Angles, or Areas: Individual Data Encodings in
Pie and Donut Charts" (http://kosara.net/publications/Skau-EuroVis-2016.html). EuroVis.
29. "A Reanalysis of A Study About (Square) Pie Charts from 2009" (https://eagereyes.org/blog/2
016/a-reanalysis-of-a-study-about-square-pie-charts-from-2009). eagereyes. 2016-07-11.
Retrieved 2016-11-28.

Further reading
Cleveland, William S. (1985). The Elements of Graphing Data. Pacific Grove, CA:
Wadsworth & Advanced Book Program. ISBN 0-534-03730-5.
Friendly, Michael. "The Golden Age of Statistical Graphics (http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?s
ervice=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.ss/1242049392)," Statistical Science,
Volume 23, Number 4 (2008), 502-535
Good, Phillip I. and Hardin, James W. Common Errors in Statistics (and How to Avoid
Them). Wiley. 2003. ISBN 0-471-46068-0.
 Guerry, A.-M. (1829). Tableau des variations météorologique comparées aux phénomènes
physiologiques, d'aprés les observations faites à l'obervatoire royal, et les recherches
statistique les plus récentes. Annales d'Hygiène Publique et de Médecine Légale, 1 :228-.
Harris, Robert L. (1999). Information Graphics: A comprehensive Illustrated Reference.
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513532-6.
Lima, Manuel. "Why humans love pie charts: an historical and evolutionary perspective (http
s://blog.usejournal.com/why-humans-love-pie-charts-9cd346000bdc)," Noteworthy, July 23,
2018
Palsky Gilles. Des chiffres et des cartes: la cartographie quantitative au XIXè siècle. Paris:
Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1996. ISBN 2-7355-0336-4.
Playfair, William, Commercial and Political Atlas and Statistical Breviary, Cambridge
University Press (2005) ISBN 0-521-85554-3.
Spence, Ian. No Humble Pie: The Origins and Usage of a statistical Chart (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20070320232857/http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~spence/Spence%202005.pdf).
Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics. Winter 2005, 30 (4), 353–368.
Tufte, Edward. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Graphics Press, 2001.
ISBN 0-9613921-4-2.
Van Belle, Gerald. Statistical Rules of Thumb. Wiley, 2002. ISBN 0-471-40227-3.
Wilkinson, Leland. The Grammar of Graphics, 2nd edition. Springer, 2005. ISBN 0-387-
24544-8.

External links
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