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Polar Area Chart Maker

Bars wrapped around a circle, each sector reaching out as far as its value. Upload your categories and numbers, and publish an interactive polar area chart you can embed anywhere — free.

Crear un Polar Area Chart — gratisVer la galería

¿Qué es un Polar Area Chart?

A polar area chart divides a circle into equal-angled sectors — one per category — and varies how far each sector extends from the centre according to its value. Florence Nightingale made the form famous in 1858, using it to show that far more soldiers in the Crimea were dying of preventable disease than of wounds, which is why it is also called a Nightingale rose or coxcomb chart. Unlike a pie chart, the angles are identical and the radius does the work; unlike a radar chart, each category is a filled sector rather than a point on a shared outline.

Cuándo usar un Polar Area Chart

  • The categories are cyclical

    Months of the year, hours of the day, compass directions. A circle makes December sit next to January, which no bar chart can do.

  • You want a memorable single figure

    The form is striking and people remember it. For a headline chart that has to survive being screenshotted, that is worth something.

  • You have between six and twelve categories

    Enough sectors for the circle to read as a circle, few enough that each one is still wide enough to label.

  • Rough magnitude is enough

    It shows clearly which categories dominate. If the audience needs the ranking rather than exact ratios, it does that job.

Cuándo no usar un Polar Area Chart

  • Accurate comparison is required

    This is the form's real weakness. Area grows with the square of the radius, so a sector twice as long looks four times as large. Bars are the honest choice when precision matters.

  • The categories have no cyclical or natural order

    Wrapping arbitrary categories into a circle implies a relationship between neighbours that does not exist.

  • The values are close together

    Small differences in radius are almost invisible near the centre, and the chart flattens into a uniform flower.

  • Any value is negative or zero

    A radius cannot go below the centre. Negative values simply cannot be drawn.

Cómo crear un Polar Area Chart

De una hoja de cálculo a un gráfico publicado, paso a paso.

01

Start from the polar bar template

Open the PlotSet radial polar bar template. It loads with sample data bound so you can see how categories become sectors.

02

Shape your data as category and value

One row per sector: the label and the number. Keep them in the order you want them to appear, because position around the circle is meaningful.

03

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the chart can be refreshed later.

04

Add radial gridlines and a scale

Without rings marking values, readers have no way to convert a radius into a number. This is the step that separates a chart from an ornament.

05

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive embed where hovering a sector shows its exact value, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF.

Empieza con la plantilla de Polar Area Chart, que ya trae datos de ejemplo, y sustitúyelos por los tuyos.

Abrir la plantilla

Las partes de un Polar Area Chart

Sector
One category, occupying an equal share of the circle. Equal angles are what distinguishes this from a pie chart.
Radius
The value encoding — how far the sector reaches from the centre. Because area scales with the square of radius, the visual impression always exaggerates.
Radial gridlines
Concentric rings at labelled values. They are the chart's axis, and leaving them off makes the values unreadable.
Centre
Zero. Every sector grows from here, so the scale must start at zero for the chart to be truthful at all.
Angular position
Where a category sits around the circle. For cyclical data this carries real meaning; for anything else it is arbitrary and should be sorted.
Sector labels
Placed around the outside. Once there are more than about a dozen sectors these begin to collide, which is the practical limit of the form.

Errores comunes con un Polar Area Chart

Treating it as a pie chart

In a pie, angle is the value. Here angle is fixed and radius is the value. Mixing the two conventions in one report guarantees misreading.

Omitting the scale

A rose with no rings and no numbers cannot be read, only admired. Add gridlines and label at least two of them.

Ignoring the area exaggeration

Readers judge sectors by area, not radius, so differences look larger than they are. Say so in the caption, or print the values.

Using it for unordered categories

If there is no cycle, a sorted bar chart tells the same story more accurately and with less explanation.

Polar Area Chart: preguntas frecuentes

Showing values across categories arranged around a circle, especially cyclical ones like months or hours, where each sector has the same angle and extends by value.

Crea tu Polar Area Chart ahora

Gratis para empezar, con más de 300 plantillas. Sin tarjeta de crédito.

Crear un Polar Area Chart — gratisTodos los tipos de gráficos