Bar Graph vs Histogram

Now that we understand histograms, let’s have a look at the difference between a histogram and a bar graph.

Histogram

Histograms make sense when a range of (x)-values is continuous, such as a range of ages from a data set.

In a histogram, there is no space between the bars. This is because of the continuous range of data. Although the variables are different, they are closely related.

Another feature is bins. The word bin refers to the category that we are looking at, for example, all people aged 20 or all people aged 45. Each bar on the histogram shows a count of the data in that specific range.

Bar Graph

We use a bar graph when we have discrete data (or categories) to compare. For example, the number of males vs. the number of females.

Since the (x)-variable is not continuous, there is a gap between the bars, so that it represents that the data is showing separate groups.