Vega-Lite Sorted Bar with Labels
A horizontal bar chart with bars sorted descending by value and per-bar value labels rendered as a layered text mark — the canonical 'top N' ranking visual that any newsroom or product analytics page needs. The Vega-Lite spec is just two layered marks (bar + text) with `sort: '-x
Template details
- chart
- bar
- sorted
- labels
- vega
- vega-lite
When to use this template
This visualization makes it immediately obvious which items rank highest or lowest within a single category based on a specific quantitative measure. An analyst would reach for it to quickly identify top performers, compare magnitudes across a set of discrete items, and understand their relative order without needing to scan a table.
- Datasets with one categorical dimension and one quantitative dimension.
- Categorical dimensions with low to medium cardinality (e.g., 5-50 distinct items).
- Quantitative values that allow for clear sorting and magnitude comparison.
- When the primary goal is to rank items by a single metric.
- Data where precise values for each category are important to display.
- Comparing magnitudes across distinct, independent categories.