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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.

免费创建 Polar Area Chart查看图库

什么是 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.

什么时候使用 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.

什么时候不该用 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.

如何制作 Polar Area Chart

从电子表格到已发布的图表，一步一步来。

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.

从已加载示例数据的 Polar Area Chart 模板开始，再替换成你自己的数据。

打开模板

Polar Area Chart 的组成部分

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.

Polar Area Chart 的常见错误

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：常见问题

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.

立即制作你的 Polar Area Chart

免费开始，300 多个模板，无需信用卡。

免费创建 Polar Area Chart全部图表类型