Bar Charts, Histograms & Scatter Plots

Bar Charts — Comparing Categories

Bar charts excel at comparing discrete categories:

categories = ["A", "B", "C", "D"]
values = [23, 45, 12, 67]

ax.bar(categories, values, color="#8b5cf6", alpha=0.8)

# Horizontal bars (better for long labels)
ax.barh(categories, values)

Grouped Bar Charts

import numpy as np

x = np.arange(len(categories))
width = 0.35

ax.bar(x - width/2, group1, width, label="Group 1")
ax.bar(x + width/2, group2, width, label="Group 2")
ax.set_xticks(x)
ax.set_xticklabels(categories)

Annotations

Add value labels directly on bars for clarity:

for bar in bars:
    height = bar.get_height()
    ax.annotate(f'{height}',
        xy=(bar.get_x() + bar.get_width()/2, height),
        xytext=(0, 3), textcoords="offset points",
        ha='center', va='bottom', color='white')