How to Draw an Arc in Tikz – Full Guide

In this LaTeX tutorial, we will learn how to draw an arc in Tikz with lots of examples. I will start with the very basic arc first.

The basic sytax is:

\draw (x,y) arc [start angle=<start>, end angle=<end>, radius=<radius>];

• (x,y): The coordinates of the starting point of the arc.
• start angle: The angle at which the arc begins (measured counterclockwise from the positive x-axis).
• end angle: The angle at which the arc ends.
• radius: The distance from the center of the circle to the arc.

If you just want the arc symbol you can check this: Arc symbol in LaTeX – Different ways

Draw simple arc

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    % center at (0,0), radius 2, from 0 to 90 degrees
    \draw (0,0) arc [start angle=0, end angle=90, radius=2cm];
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Output:

I just used \draw command with arc syntax.

You can change the angle and radius to suit your needs.

Draw a circle using arc in Tikz

We can set the end angle to 360 to draw a circle.

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    % center at (0,0), radius 2, from 0 to 90 degrees
    \draw (0,0) arc [start angle=0, end angle=360, radius=2cm];
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Output:

Arc over a line in Tikz

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    % Draw a line followed by an arc and another line
    \draw (0,0) -- (1,0) arc [start angle=0, end angle=90, radius=1cm] -- (0,1);
\end{tikzpicture}


\end{document}

Output:

Customizing Arcs: Line Styles and Colors

We can customize line thickness, color, style with various options in Tikz.

Dotted and colored arc in Tikz

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw[thick, dotted, red] (0,0) arc [start angle=0, end angle=90, radius=2cm];
\end{tikzpicture}


\end{document}

Output:

This above code will generate a thick, dotted red arc from 0 to 90 degrees. You can adjust the thickness, line style, and color as per your needs.

Available Line Styles:

• Solid (default)
• Dotted: dotted
• Dashed: dashed
• Line thickness: thin, thick, ultra thick, or custom thickness like line width=0.5mm

To learn more check: Draw line of any thickness in Tikz LaTeX

Arc with Arrowheads – Tikz

We can use the  [->] option to draw an arrow at the end of the arc. It can help us to understand the direction of the arc easily. I often use this to draw curve arrow in my LaTeX documents.

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \draw[->] (0,0) arc [start angle=90, end angle=0, radius=2cm];
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Output:

Tips to draw complex arc diagrams in LaTeX

You can name the points for reference and then using those points you can draw the arc diagrams just like this: ( I am showing a simple example here)

\documentclass[tikz,border=3.14mm]{standalone}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \coordinate (A) at (0,0);
    \coordinate (B) at (2,0);
    \coordinate (C) at (0,2);
    \draw (A) -- (B) arc [start angle=0, end angle=90, radius=2cm] -- (C);
\end{tikzpicture}


\end{document}

Here I am using the points A, B, C to draw the arc diagram. You can run the code to see the output.

If you need anything else apart from these, do let me know in the comment section below, I will be back with the solution.