What is Graph?

A graph is a pictorial representation of the relationship between two or more values. It shows them in an organized manner, which varies depending on given purposes.

Graph is a very broad term, often used interchangeably with “chart”. However, they are not the same thing: while all graphs are types of charts, not all charts are graphs. 

Graph vs Chart

GraphChart
data-orientedcategorization-oriented
depict trends and changes in that data over timedepict differences between items

Still – even with the above-mentioned distinction – it is very difficult to properly define such a broad term, and so it might be easier to do that by featuring specific types of graphs. 

There are several ones, from which the most common is e.g.:

  • Bar Graph
  • Segmented Bar Graph
  • Column Graph
  • Box and Whiskers Graph (also called a Box Plot)
  • Frequency Graph (Frequency Table)
  • Cumulative Frequency Table
  • Frequency Polygon
  • Histogram
  • Line Graph
  • Timeplot
  • Relative Frequency Histogram
  • Pie Chart
  • Scatter Plot
  • Stemplot, etc.