area

A line with the space under it filled, so the eye reads bulk instead of height. Stacked into bands it shows how a total splits into parts over time, and the useful reading is which band is swelling while the total holds steady. The cost is that only the bottom band sits on a flat baseline, so the ones above it are harder to measure exactly.

A line with the space under it filled, so the eye reads bulk instead of height. Stacked into bands it shows how a total splits into parts over time, and the useful reading is which band is swelling while the total holds steady. The cost is that only the bottom band sits on a flat baseline, so the ones above it are harder to measure exactly.

Example

Best when you want the total and its parts at once, and the parts genuinely sum to that total.