One disadvantage of vertical bar graphs, however, is that they lack space for text labelling at the foot of each bar. When category labels in the graph are too long, you might find a horizontal bar graph better for displaying information.
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Example 2 – Horizontal bar graphs
The horizontal bar graph uses the y-axis (vertical line) for labelling. There is more room to fit text labels for categorical variables on the y-axis.
Figure 3 shows the number of students at Diversity College who are immigrants by their last country of permanent residence. The graph shows that 100 students immigrated from China, 380 from France, and 260 from Brazil.
A horizontal bar graph has been used to show a comparison of these data. This graph is the best method to present this type of information because the labels (in this case, the countries' names) are too long to appear clearly on the x-axis.