Chart type · Trend
Area
How to read it
Filled height is the value; when stacked, each band is one part and the top edge is the total. In a share chart every column adds up to 100%, so a band's thickness is its share. A dashed line marks where the highlighted series started, and the shaded gap is how far it moved.
Best for
Totals over time, or how a composition shifted across a period — especially when one part overtakes another.
When not to use it
The series cross each other often, where the fills hide one another.
The common mistake
Stacking series that are not parts of a common total, which turns the top edge into a sum of unrelated things.
Example data
How the world's power mix shifted
Global electricity generation by source, share of total
Point at the chart, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to read each value.
- Renewables
- 2015: 12% → 2025: 38% (+217%)
High 38% (2025) · Low 12% (2015) - Gas
- 2015: 22% → 2025: 22% (0%)
High 24% (2019) · Low 22% (2015) - Coal
- 2015: 41% → 2025: 21% (−48.8%)
High 41% (2015) · Low 21% (2025) - Nuclear & other
- 2015: 25% → 2025: 19% (−24%)
High 25% (2015) · Low 19% (2021)
The sample dataset this format ships with, drawn the way the site draws every clip's numbers — hover, sort or step through it. Figures as given by its source line: Illustrative example data.
Examples
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Related chart types
- 1 reelLineAn animated line reveal for one or more series.
- 3 reelsBar raceHorizontal bars reordering as values change across frames.
- No reels yetSlopeA two-point before-and-after comparison per item.
- 1 reelWaterfallStart, contributions, end: each step peels off a running total, and the payoff brackets how far the end landed from the start.
- No reels yetFunnelA true-width drop-off funnel: a stream of dots spills out at every step, a live counter falls stage by stage, and the leakiest step cracks open at the end.
- No reels yetScatterPoints revealed against two axes, with an optional fitted trendline, the gap to it for the story point, and a refit without that point.