Bar charts and pie charts highlight different aspects of the data

Although a bar chart and a pie chart are visual representations of the same values (the proportions in the categories), they highlight different features of these proportions.

Bar charts provide better comparisons of the individual proportions, whereas pie charts allow us to assess the proportions in two or more adjacent categories.

Educational background of employees

The following frequency table shows the highest academic qualification obtained by each of the 517 employees of a company.

Highest
qualification
  Frequency     Percentage  
Grade school
High school
Bachelors degree
Masters degree
Doctorate
Other
13
191
173
51
67
22
2.5
36.9
33.5
9.9
13.0
4.3
Total
517
 

A pie chart and a bar chart are shown below.

The bar chart shows that more employees had high school qualifications than bachelors degrees. This is less obvious from the pie chart. Click on the categories to read off the exact proportions.

On the other hand, the pie chart shows that just over half of the employees had university qualifications (bachelors, masters or doctorate) since these categories span just over half of the circle. This information is not immediately apparent in the bar chart. Drag over adjacent categories to read off the proportion of employees in these groups.