[Excel] How to make a population pyramid with bar charts

The traditional population pyramid, easy to make but not necessarily the most effective.

Traditional population pyramid with bars in Excel.

Design notes

• Using bars to make a population pyramid is the most common form of making this chart.
• The cart feels too heavy and probably is not ideal for the demographers themselves, who are more interested in the overall shape then in comparing individual values.
• Instead of a legend, you can place a text box to the left of the y axis with “Male” and one to the right of the axis with “Famale”

Video

Notes

• 00:15: Create a new [Male] column multiplying values by -1 so that this series is displayed to the left of the y-axis.