Bar Charts are used to display a single categorical variable.

Bar Chart Using a Dataset

# Data comes from the mtcars dataset.  
barplot(table(mtcars$gear), col="purple", xlab="Number of Gears", ylab="Number of Cars", main="Cars by Gears")

Bar Chart Using Your Own Data

# Data entered in by hand
Company <- c("Garmin", "Magellin", "Mio", "Other", "TomTom"); 
Percent <- c(47, 17, 7, 10, 19); 
barplot(height=Percent, names.arg=Company, col="blue", xlab="Company", ylab="Percentage", main="Market Share of GPS" )

Bar Chart Using Multiple Colors

Company <- c("Garmin", "Magellin", "Mio", "Other", "TomTom"); 
Percent <- c(47, 17, 7, 10, 19); 
barplot(height=Percent, col=rainbow(length(Company)), xlab="", ylab="Percentage", main="Market Share of GPS") 
legend("topright",legend=Company, fill=rainbow(length(Company)), box.lty=0)

Mathematicss, Computer Science, and Statistics Department Gustavus Adolphus College