Pop Pyramid in Excel

Population Pyramid

It is common to create a population pyramid in Excel, in order to identify the distribution of its customers.

Unfortunately, Excel doesn't have this pattern in the Chart's ribbon. But you can create easily a population pyramid chart by following these steps.

Expert

by Frédéric LE GUEN

8 January 2018 16:56

Sommaire

The data for a Population Pyramid

When you want to draw a population pyramid chart, your data are usually like this

Put one column with negative values

Before to create your chart, you must perform a subtraction of one column with 0.

Women are generally on the left of a population pyramid so this column must have negative values.

In a new column, write this formula

=0-C4

And copy this formula for the others cells

Choice of the chart

Now, it's time to select the chart

Select your data
In the ribbon select Insert>Charts
Then, choose the chart type 'Bar'
Finish by the option 2D Bar>Clustered bars.

Now, you have the following chart. Wow, it doesn't look like a population pyramid

Remove unnecessary data

We have a chart that has two columns for the women (a positive column and a negative). We will remove the positive column.

Select the chart and select the menu Design > Select Data. The following dialog appears:

You will also have display this dialog box by doing a right click on your chart and choosing 'Select data ...'

In this dialog, you choose the first 'Women' and click on Remove. If ever you select the wrong series, do not worry, just click the cancel button and start again.

Formatting bar

You can see that in your chart, the bars are thin and offset with respect to each other. It is very easy to remedy these two points.

After selecting the chart in the Layout tab, you select the series Women and then you click Format Selection. You can also right-click on your chart and select the menu Format data series.... The dialog box is displayed.

To reduce the gap between the bars, you will move the cursor to 0% (no gap) and the bars are not offset. Then you move the cursor to 100% (overlapped).

The graph becomes

Changing axes

To complete our graph, we must reverse the vertical-axis so that the lowest values at the bottom, set the horizontal-axis while the left and also change the number format to not display negative values.

Select the vertical axis (using the dropdown menu in the Layout tab is easier) and then you click Format Selection. In the Settings box, you select Axis Options and you select 'Categories in reverse order' (to return the chart) and also change the value 'Axis Labels' in the Low (to put axis labels on the left).

Then select the horizontal axis.

In the sub-menu Axis Options, change the Axis Label to High (to put the axis labels on the bottom of the chart)

In the sub-menu Number , choose the Custom category and write Standard, Standard in the 'Format Code' and click on the button Add

And the chart becomes :

Change the design

It only remains for you to use the various menus layouts for a very neat pyramid.

The chart becomes

And if you change the color of the format Series (Gradient fill)

Have a look at these other articles that could help you in your work

Creation of a population pyramid

Tags: Chart

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