Spot changes in overall volume and how categories contribute to those changes with Tableau Next area charts. Show a measure as a single filled area, or divide it into stacked, colored bands to compare category contributions.
Required Editions
| View supported editions. |
Types of Area Charts
Choose a continuous or discrete area chart based on how you want to display your data values. Continuous area charts use an axis, with labels marking positions on the scale. Discrete area charts use separate headers, one for each distinct value. Choose a continuous area chart to emphasize patterns along a time or numeric scale, such as changes in monthly sales. Choose a discrete area chart to compare values across distinct, ordered groups, such as case counts by customer satisfaction rating.
When to Use Area Charts
These examples show how different business areas can analyze data with area charts.
| Business Area | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Sales | Track monthly order quantities by region to identify changes in total demand and each region’s contribution. |
| Marketing | Compare campaign responses across customer age groups, with bands for marketing channels, to identify the most responsive groups and the channels driving their engagement. |
| Service | Compare case counts by customer satisfaction rating, with bands for support channels, to see which channels account for the most low-rated cases. |
How to Read an Area Chart
In this example, each colored band represents a product category’s monthly sales. The band’s thickness shows that category’s sales, while the top edge of the stack shows total sales across categories. A thicker band indicates higher sales for that category. Use the legend to identify categories and the labels to review their values.
Track Totals and Category Contributions with Area Charts
Use area charts in Tableau Next to analyze changes in overall volume and how categories contribute to the total. Choose a continuous or discrete chart to display values along an axis or under separate headers. Customize the chart with colors, labels, and tooltips to make it easier to interpret. For example, create an area chart to track monthly order quantities by region and identify changes in total demand and each region’s contribution.
Required Editions
| View supported editions. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To create an area chart in Tableau Next: | Tableau Unmetered Platform Analyst or Tableau Next Platform Analyst permission set |
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From the Show Me pane in your visualization, click the
thumbnail for discrete or the 
thumbnail for continuous area chart.
When you create area charts without date fields, select Area from the layout menu and add fields to your visualization.
The Show Me pane lists the required fields and supported field encodings for the chart type. - From the Data pane, drag the date field you want to analyze onto Columns. For the chart in the example, select Order Date.
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To group orders by month, open the date field’s menu and choose
how to combine the dates:
- Select Month under Date Part to combine the same month across years, such as all Januaries.
- Select Month under Date Value to keep each month within its year separate, such as January 2025 and January 2026.
- Drag a measure field, such as Quantity, onto Rows and set its aggregation to Sum.
- Drag a dimension field, such as Region, onto Color to divide the total into colored bands.
- Optionally, add labels or tooltips to make the chart easier to interpret. For example, drag Quantity onto Label and set its aggregation to Sum to show each region’s monthly quantity.
