Stacked 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

Drawing a stacked area chart with ggplot2 is pretty straightforward once you've understood how to build an area chart with geom_area(). Basically, you just have to provide a categorical to the fill argument to split the area by groups.

Most basic

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

Reorder

Learn different methods to reorder the groups from top to bottom

Percent stacked

Switch to a stacked percent area graph where the sum of each time point is 100

Customization

Usual customizations like title, theme, color palette and more.

Interactive version: plotly

The ggplotly() function of the plotly library makes it a breeze to build an interactive version. Try to hover circles to get a tooltip, or select an area of interest for zooming. Double click to reinitialize.

Get code

Alternatives to stacking

Stacking suffers several issues. In the left chart below, try to estimate how the green group evolved during the period? You can read more about this acaveat here. Depending what your final goal is, it can be better to use small multiple or unstacked line chart.

Learn more

The issue with stacking.

Try to understand how the green group evolved on the period. Pretty hard isn't it?

Line chart.

Switch to a line chart to understand better how each group behaved during the period.

Small multiple

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

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.