Partitions are adjacency diagrams that reveal the topology of a hierarchy by the relative placement of its nodes. Vertical partitions, or icicle charts, stack rectangles that represent levels in a hierarchy. At the top is a rectangle representing the root, occupying 100% of the chart's width, followed by lower levels that partition the chart's width proportionally, based on the quantitative dimension represented by each node. The leaves appear at the bottom of the chart, hanging like icicles.
Partitions can also be rendered horizontally or radially. A radial partition is called a sunburst, where the center represents the root, and the leaves point outward like sunrays.
The following charts are representations of the same data (the populations of countries organized by supercontinents, continents and United Nations regions) visualized as an icicle chart (without...
