Area chart with plt.fill_between in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Area chart with plt.fill_between

📖 Scenario: You are analyzing the sales data of a small shop over a week. You want to visualize how sales changed each day using an area chart. This will help you see the trend clearly.

🎯 Goal: Create an area chart using matplotlib with plt.fill_between to show daily sales over one week.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list called days with the days of the week as strings: 'Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun'.

Create a list called sales with the sales numbers: 150, 200, 180, 220, 170, 210, 190.

Use plt.fill_between to create the area chart with days on the x-axis and sales on the y-axis.

Add labels for the x-axis and y-axis, and a title for the chart.

Display the chart using plt.show().

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Area charts are useful to show how values change over time or categories, like sales, temperatures, or website visits.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists use area charts to communicate trends clearly to teams and decision makers.

1

Create the sales data lists

Create a list called days with these exact values: 'Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun'. Then create a list called sales with these exact values: 150, 200, 180, 220, 170, 210, 190.

Matplotlib

# Create the lists days and sales with the exact values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create lists. Put the days as strings in the days list and numbers in the sales list.

2

Import matplotlib and set up the plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt. This will allow you to create the chart.

Matplotlib

days = ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']
sales = [150, 200, 180, 220, 170, 210, 190]
# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt to import the plotting library.

3

Create the area chart with plt.fill_between

Use plt.fill_between with days as the x-axis and sales as the y-axis to create the area chart. Then add x-axis label 'Day', y-axis label 'Sales', and title 'Sales Over a Week'.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

days = ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']
sales = [150, 200, 180, 220, 170, 210, 190]
# Use plt.fill_between with days and sales
# Add labels and title
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.fill_between with numeric x values and then set x-ticks to the day labels. Then use plt.xlabel, plt.ylabel, and plt.title to add labels and title.

4

Display the area chart

Use plt.show() to display the area chart you created.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

days = ['Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat', 'Sun']
sales = [150, 200, 180, 220, 170, 210, 190]

plt.fill_between(range(len(days)), sales, color='skyblue', alpha=0.5)
plt.xticks(range(len(days)), days)
plt.xlabel('Day')
plt.ylabel('Sales')
plt.title('Sales Over a Week')
# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.show() to display the chart window.