Circular Bar Plot in Python – Plotly

This tutorial will explore the importance of circular bar plots and how to create them using Python. I will use the Plotly library to generate circular bar plots as it creates rich quality and interactive plots with simple code.

Circular Bar Plot

A circular bar plot is created on the polar coordinate system instead of a cartesian coordinate system. The bar radiates outwards from the center, creating the shape of a circle. These plots are used where we have circular patterns in the dataset or want to provide results in circular form for better understanding.

You can check: How to install Plotly on your machine in Python

Let’s import libraries and load the dataset. I am using the built-in dataset from the plotly library. It contains information about the wind. We will create a circular bar plot for wind directions so that directions can be visualized better as they are in circular form.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.wind()
df

Creating Circular Bar Plot

Let’s create a circular bar plot. The radial axis r will have frequency, and theta parameter will take direction as input as we create for direction.

fig = px.bar_polar(df, r="frequency", theta="direction", title='Wind Frequency by Direction')

fig.show()