Relationship
Chord diagram
Places groups around a circle and links them with ribbons representing relationships or flows.
- Diagram
- Relationship
- Flow
What it answers
Which groups exchange the most?
- Shape
- Circular groups joined by ribbons
- What it shows
- Reciprocity and dominant connections.
Example
The question
How much do our five regional teams trade with each other?
Internal orders between regions, 2025 (EUR million, chord diagram)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Dense pairwise exchange among a modest set of groups.
Avoid it when
Many tiny ribbons or a requirement for exact route tracing.
How to read it
Read circular group labels and ribbon widths, checking direction conventions.
Note
Specify direction and treatment of reciprocal links.
The data you need
- Layout
- Edge list plus optional node table
- Fields
- Source: text ID; Target: text ID; Value: nonnegative number
- One row is
- One directed source-to-target quantity. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Use consistent node IDs and units. Aggregate duplicate pairs deliberately. Check balance where flow conservation is expected.
- Optional
- Separate node table: NodeID,Label,Group.
- Preparation
- Resolve node identities and endpoint joins; define direction and duplicate/self-link handling. Aggregate weights only under a stated relationship or flow definition.
- Units
- Unweighted links encode presence. Weights need a unit; flow shares divide by stated source, destination or network totals, not an assumed common denominator.
Worked example
A->B30, A->C20 gives a larger A-B ribbon. Direction must be explicitly encoded if flows are directed.
| Source | Target | Value |
|---|---|---|
| A | B | 30 |
| A | C | 20 |
| B | D | 30 |