Part of a whole
Stacked area chart
Stacks component series to show their contributions to a changing total.
- Chart
- Composition
- Trend over time
What it answers
How do components contribute to a changing total?
- Shape
- Stacked filled bands
- What it shows
- Total growth and shifting contributions.
Example
The question
How do our three sales channels add up to total orders over time?
Orders per month by channel, 2025 (thousands)
Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.
When to use it
Use it when
Several additive nonnegative series over common periods.
Avoid it when
When precise middle-band comparison is central.
How to read it
Read the top boundary for total and each band's thickness for component amount.
Note
Align series to common time points.
The data you need
- Layout
- Long table
- Fields
- Time: date/datetime; Series: text; Value: number
- One row is
- One series observation at one time. What is the grain?
- Rules
- Sort time within series. Resolve duplicate time-series pairs and align series before stacking.
- Optional
- Wide alternative: Time,A,B with one row per time.
- Preparation
- Align series on common time positions, check additive/nonnegative values and stack component amounts.
- Units
- Time uses a stated date/time unit and sampling period; the value axis uses the measure's unit. Rates need their own explicit denominator.
Worked example
Data Jan: A30, B45; Feb: A34, B40. Stack areas. The total dips 75 to 74 while A's thickness increases.
| Time | Series | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-01 | A | 30 |
| 2026-01-01 | B | 45 |
| 2026-02-01 | A | 34 |
| 2026-02-01 | B | 40 |