Lollipop charts in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Create a Lollipop Chart with Matplotlib

📖 Scenario: You work in a small bakery and want to show how many lollipops were sold each day last week. You want to create a simple chart to share with your team.

🎯 Goal: Build a lollipop chart using matplotlib to display the number of lollipops sold each day of the week.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary with days of the week as keys and lollipop sales as values.

Create a list of days from the dictionary keys.

Create a list of sales from the dictionary values.

Use matplotlib to plot a lollipop chart with vertical lines and dots.

Label the x-axis with days and y-axis with sales.

Display the chart.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Lollipop charts are simple and clear ways to show comparisons between categories, like daily sales or survey results.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists use lollipop charts to present data trends clearly to teams and stakeholders.

1

DATA SETUP: Create the sales data dictionary

Create a dictionary called sales with these exact entries: 'Monday': 10, 'Tuesday': 15, 'Wednesday': 7, 'Thursday': 12, 'Friday': 20, 'Saturday': 25, 'Sunday': 18.

Matplotlib

# Create the sales dictionary with days and lollipop sales
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a dictionary. Put days as keys and sales numbers as values.

2

CONFIGURATION: Extract days and sales lists

Create a list called days from the keys of sales. Create a list called values from the values of sales.

Matplotlib

sales = {'Monday': 10, 'Tuesday': 15, 'Wednesday': 7, 'Thursday': 12, 'Friday': 20, 'Saturday': 25, 'Sunday': 18}
# Create the list days from sales keys
# Create the list values from sales values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use list() with sales.keys() and sales.values() to get the lists.

3

CORE LOGIC: Plot the lollipop chart

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt. Use plt.stem() with days and values to create the lollipop chart. Set the marker format to 'o' and line format to '-' for dots and lines.

Matplotlib

sales = {'Monday': 10, 'Tuesday': 15, 'Wednesday': 7, 'Thursday': 12, 'Friday': 20, 'Saturday': 25, 'Sunday': 18}
days = list(sales.keys())
values = list(sales.values())
# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# Use plt.stem() with days and values, set markerfmt='o' and linefmt='-'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt to import. Then call plt.stem() with the correct arguments.

4

OUTPUT: Label and show the chart

Use plt.xlabel() to label the x-axis as 'Days'. Use plt.ylabel() to label the y-axis as 'Lollipops Sold'. Use plt.title() to add the title 'Lollipop Sales Last Week'. Finally, use plt.show() to display the chart.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

sales = {'Monday': 10, 'Tuesday': 15, 'Wednesday': 7, 'Thursday': 12, 'Friday': 20, 'Saturday': 25, 'Sunday': 18}
days = list(sales.keys())
values = list(sales.values())

plt.stem(days, values, markerfmt='o', linefmt='-')
# Label x-axis as 'Days'
# Label y-axis as 'Lollipops Sold'
# Add title 'Lollipop Sales Last Week'
# Show the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.xlabel(), plt.ylabel(), and plt.title() to add labels and title. Then call plt.show() to display the chart.