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R >Basic Charts >Horizontal Bar Charts
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Horizontal Bar Charts in R

How to make a horizontal bar chart in R. Examples of grouped, stacked, overlaid, and colored horizontal bar charts.


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New to Plotly?

Plotly is a free and open-source graphing library for R. We recommend you read our Getting Started guide for the latest installation or upgrade instructions, then move on to our Plotly Fundamentals tutorials or dive straight in to some Basic Charts tutorials.

Basic Horizontal Bar Chart

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly(x = c(20, 14, 23), y = c('giraffes', 'orangutans', 'monkeys'), type = 'bar', orientation = 'h')

fig

Colored Horizontal Bar Chart

library(plotly)

y <- c('giraffes', 'orangutans', 'monkeys')
SF_Zoo <- c(20, 14, 23)
LA_Zoo <- c(12, 18, 29)
data <- data.frame(y, SF_Zoo, LA_Zoo)

fig <- plot_ly(data, x = ~SF_Zoo, y = ~y, type = 'bar', orientation = 'h', name = 'SF Zoo',
        marker = list(color = 'rgba(246, 78, 139, 0.6)',
                      line = list(color = 'rgba(246, 78, 139, 1.0)',
                                  width = 3)))
fig <- fig %>% add_trace(x = ~LA_Zoo, name = 'LA Zoo',
            marker = list(color = 'rgba(58, 71, 80, 0.6)',
                          line = list(color = 'rgba(58, 71, 80, 1.0)',
                                      width = 3)))
fig <- fig %>% layout(barmode = 'stack',
         xaxis = list(title = ""),
         yaxis = list(title =""))

fig

Color Palette for Bar Chart

library(plotly)

y <- c('The course was effectively<br>organized',
       'The course developed my<br>abilities and skills for<br>the subject',
       'The course developed my<br>ability to think critically about<br>the subject',
       'I would recommend this<br>course to a friend')
x1 <- c(21, 24, 27, 29)
x2 <-c(30, 31, 26, 24)
x3 <- c(21, 19, 23, 15)
x4 <- c(16, 15, 11, 18)
x5 <- c(12, 11, 13, 14)

data <- data.frame(y, x1, x2, x3, x4, x5)

top_labels <- c('Strongly<br>agree', 'Agree', 'Neutral', 'Disagree', 'Strongly<br>disagree')

fig <- plot_ly(data, x = ~x1, y = ~y, type = 'bar', orientation = 'h',
        marker = list(color = 'rgba(38, 24, 74, 0.8)',
                      line = list(color = 'rgb(248, 248, 249)', width = 1))) 
fig <- fig %>% add_trace(x = ~x2, marker = list(color = 'rgba(71, 58, 131, 0.8)')) 
fig <- fig %>% add_trace(x = ~x3, marker = list(color = 'rgba(122, 120, 168, 0.8)')) 
fig <- fig %>% add_trace(x = ~x4, marker = list(color = 'rgba(164, 163, 204, 0.85)')) 
fig <- fig %>% add_trace(x = ~x5, marker = list(color = 'rgba(190, 192, 213, 1)')) 
fig <- fig %>% layout(xaxis = list(title = "",
                      showgrid = FALSE,
                      showline = FALSE,
                      showticklabels = FALSE,
                      zeroline = FALSE,
                      domain = c(0.15, 1)),
         yaxis = list(title = "",
                      showgrid = FALSE,
                      showline = FALSE,
                      showticklabels = FALSE,
                      zeroline = FALSE),
         barmode = 'stack',
         paper_bgcolor = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)', plot_bgcolor = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)',
         margin = list(l = 120, r = 10, t = 140, b = 80),
         showlegend = FALSE) 
  # labeling the y-axis
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'paper', yref = 'y', x = 0.14, y = y,
                  xanchor = 'right',
                  text = y,
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                            color = 'rgb(67, 67, 67)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE, align = 'right') 
  # labeling the percentages of each bar (x_axis)
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'y',
                  x = x1 / 2, y = y,
                  text = paste(data[,"x1"], '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                            color = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE) 
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'y',
                  x = x1 + x2 / 2, y = y,
                  text = paste(data[,"x2"], '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                              color = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE) 
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'y',
                  x = x1 + x2 + x3 / 2, y = y,
                  text = paste(data[,"x3"], '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                              color = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE) 
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'y',
                  x = x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 / 2, y = y,
                  text = paste(data[,"x4"], '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                              color = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE) 
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'y',
                  x = x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 / 2, y = y,
                  text = paste(data[,"x5"], '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                              color = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE) 
  # labeling the first Likert scale (on the top)
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x', yref = 'paper',
                  x = c(21 / 2, 21 + 30 / 2, 21 + 30 + 21 / 2, 21 + 30 + 21 + 16 / 2,
                        21 + 30 + 21 + 16 + 12 / 2),
                  y = 1.15,
                  text = top_labels,
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12,
                              color = 'rgb(67, 67, 67)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE)

fig

Bar Chart with Line Plot

library(plotly)

y <- c('Japan', 'United Kingdom', 'Canada', 'Netherlands', 'United States', 'Belgium', 'Sweden', 'Switzerland')
x_saving <- c(1.3586, 2.2623000000000002, 4.9821999999999997, 6.5096999999999996,
              7.4812000000000003, 7.5133000000000001, 15.2148, 17.520499999999998)
x_net_worth <- c(93453.919999999998, 81666.570000000007, 69889.619999999995, 78381.529999999999,
                 141395.29999999999, 92969.020000000004, 66090.179999999993, 122379.3)
data <- data.frame(y, x_saving, x_net_worth)

fig1 <- plot_ly(x = ~x_saving, y = ~reorder(y, x_saving), name = 'Household savings, percentage of household disposable income',
              type = 'bar', orientation = 'h',
              marker = list(color = 'rgba(50, 171, 96, 0.6)',
                            line = list(color = 'rgba(50, 171, 96, 1.0)', width = 1))) 
fig1 <- fig1 %>% layout(yaxis = list(showgrid = FALSE, showline = FALSE, showticklabels = TRUE, domain= c(0, 0.85)),
         xaxis = list(zeroline = FALSE, showline = FALSE, showticklabels = TRUE, showgrid = TRUE)) 
fig1 <- fig1 %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x1', yref = 'y',
                  x = x_saving * 2.1 + 3,  y = y,
                  text = paste(round(x_saving, 2), '%'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12, color = 'rgb(50, 171, 96)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE)

fig2 <- plot_ly(x = ~x_net_worth, y = ~reorder(y, x_saving), name = 'Household net worth, Million USD/capita',
              type = 'scatter', mode = 'lines+markers',
              line = list(color = 'rgb(128, 0, 128)')) 
fig2 <- fig2 %>% layout(yaxis = list(showgrid = FALSE, showline = TRUE, showticklabels = FALSE,
                       linecolor = 'rgba(102, 102, 102, 0.8)', linewidth = 2,
                       domain = c(0, 0.85)),
         xaxis = list(zeroline = FALSE, showline = FALSE, showticklabels = TRUE, showgrid = TRUE,
                       side = 'top', dtick = 25000)) 
fig2 <- fig2 %>% add_annotations(xref = 'x2', yref = 'y',
                  x = x_net_worth, y = y,
                  text = paste(x_net_worth, 'M'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 12, color = 'rgb(128, 0, 128)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE)

fig <- subplot(fig1, fig2) 
fig <- fig %>% layout(title = 'Household savings & net worth for eight OECD countries',
         legend = list(x = 0.029, y = 1.038,
                       font = list(size = 10)),
         margin = list(l = 100, r = 20, t = 70, b = 70),
         paper_bgcolor = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)',
         plot_bgcolor = 'rgb(248, 248, 255)')
fig <- fig %>% add_annotations(xref = 'paper', yref = 'paper',
                  x = -0.14, y = -0.15,
                  text = paste('OECD (2015), Household savings (indicator), Household net worth (indicator). doi: 10.1787/cfc6f499-en (Accessed on 05 June 2015)'),
                  font = list(family = 'Arial', size = 10, color = 'rgb(150,150,150)'),
                  showarrow = FALSE)

fig

Reference

See https://plotly.com/r/reference/#bar for more information and chart attribute options!

What About Dash?

Dash for R is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash for R at https://dashr.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig, you can display the same figure in a Dash for R application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dashCoreComponents package like this:

library(plotly)

fig <- plot_ly() 
# fig <- fig %>% add_trace( ... )
# fig <- fig %>% layout( ... ) 

library(dash)
library(dashCoreComponents)
library(dashHtmlComponents)

app <- Dash$new()
app$layout(
    htmlDiv(
        list(
            dccGraph(figure=fig) 
        )
     )
)

app$run_server(debug=TRUE, dev_tools_hot_reload=FALSE)