Histograms

Understanding Data Visualization

Richie Cotton

Data Evangelist at DataCamp

When should you use a histogram?

If you have a single continuous variable.
You want to ask questions about the shape of its distribution.

Kings and Queens of England & Britain

official_name	house	birth_date	start_of_rule	age_at_start_of_rule
Charles III	Windsor	1948-11-14	2022-09-08	73.86575
Elizabeth II	Windsor	1926-04-21	1952-02-06	25.79603
George VI	Windsor	1895-12-14	1936-12-11	40.99110
Edward VIII	Windsor	1894-06-23	1936-01-20	41.57426
...	...	...	...	...
Eadred	Wessex	0923-07-01	0946-05-26	22.90212
Edmund I	Wessex	0921-07-01	0939-10-27	18.32170
Aethelstan	Wessex	0894-07-01	0924-07-01	29.99863

Histogram of age at start of rule

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs.

Choosing binwidth: 1 year

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs, with a binwidth of 1 year.

Choosing binwidth: 25 years

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs, with a binwidth of 25 years.

Modality: how many peaks?

Histograms displaying unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal distributions, with one, two, and three peaks respectively.

Modality: how many peaks?

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs.

Histograms displaying unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal distributions, with one, two, and three peaks respectively.

Skewness: is it symmetric?

Histograms displaying left-skewed, symmetric, and right-skewed distributions.

Skewness: is it symmetric?

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs.

Histograms displaying left-skewed, symmetric, and right-skewed distributions.

Kurtosis: how many extreme values?

Histograms displaying leptokurtic, mesokurtic, and platykurtic distributions.

Kurtosis: how many extreme values?

Histogram of the age of ascension of English and British monarchs.

Histograms displaying leptokurtic, mesokurtic, and platykurtic distributions.

Let's practice!

Understanding Data Visualization

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