Area chart | the R Graph Gallery

Note on area chart

This section is tightly linked with other sections. A line chart is the same but doesn't fill the surface between the line and the X axis. A connected scatterplot is almost the same thing, but each observation is represented as a dot. More generally, the time series section can interest you.

connected scatter line chart time series

Step by step with ggplot2

ggplot2 allows to draw line charts thanks to the geom_line() function. It expects as input a data frame with 2 numeric variables, one displayed on each axis. Start your journey with the most basic line chart.

Most basic

Most basic area chart with R and ggplot2

Improve appearance

Use a theme, highlight top line, add points if needed, and more options.

Log transform

How to use a log transformation for the Y axis with scale_x_log10().

Most basic

Most basic stacked area chart you can build with R and ggplot2, using the geom_area function.

Small multiple

Small multiple is probably the best alternative, making obvious the evolution of each gropup.

Area chart with gradient color

With ggpattern, it's now possible to have not just one color, but a gradient of colors.

Transparent gradient color

Here's how to combine a color gradient and transparency against the background in an area chart.

Customized area chart with color gradient

An area chart with color gradient, transparency, line chart on top and data points.

Interactive version: dygraph

The dygraph package is dedicated to time series visualization. It offers zooming, hovering, minimaps and much more. Visit the time series section that is dedicated to it for more.

Get code Time series section

Step by step with base R

In base R, the combination of the plot() and the polygon() functions allows to build quality area charts.

Most basic

Most basic area chart you can build in base R using the polygon function.

🌐 From the web

The web is full of astonishing R charts made by awesome bloggers. The R graph gallery tries to display some of the best creations and explain how their source code works. If you want to display your work here, please drop me a word or even better, submit a Pull Request!

Line chart with labels

It is a common need to display labels at the end of the lines, since that's the place where labels are the more readable. Cédric Scherer gives us a nice walk-through here on how to do it with ggplot2.

Line and Area charts by The Economist

Learn how to mimick the style of The Economist with libraries like ggplot2, patchwork, grid, ggtext and more.

Line chart with filled intersection

This example uses geo-faceting: the dataset is split and plotted using geographical regions. For each charts, 2 lines are displayed and the intersection between both is filled.

line chart with geo-faceting and filled intersection. Made with R and ggplot2

Stacked area chart with clean labels

A stacked area chart with a stunning color palette, some well positioned inline labels, some handy vertical annotations and some clean caption text.

Area chart with small multiples

Learn how to create an area chart for a large number of categories