Pie Charts normally show proportion, which can be measured in percentages or fractions.
This chart shows the relative size of populations of countries of the European Union in 2007. So we can only make comparisons; we cannot say anything about change.
We can see that the country with the largest population was Germany with 16.6% of the European Union’s population. We can also see that the second largest population was that of France with 12.8% of the population.
We do NOT know from this chart which country has the smallest population because the 21 smallest countries are included in one group. (If you’re interested, it is Malta with less than 0.1 per cent.)
You can see that the four largest countries (Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy) together make up more than half of the European Union’s population.
You CANNOT say that Poland has the smallest population: 21 other countries have populations smaller than Poland’s.
The twenty-one smallest countries of the European Union make up nearly 30% of the population.
This chart shows the relative size of populations of countries of the European Union in both 1998 and 2007. In this case we can make two sets of comparisons:
- We can make comparisons between the countries in each year.
- We can make comparisons between the two years (i.e. examine any changes from 1998 to 2007).
In this case, we’ll look at comparisons between the two years.
The first thing to notice is that there is very little change: all changes amount to less than 1%.
The second change to notice is which countries’ populations grew (as a proportion of the whole) and which countries’ populations shrank.
You can see that both Germany’s and Poland’s populations share of the European Union’s Population fell from 1998 to 2007 ( from 17.1% to 16.6 % and from 8% to 7.7%, respectively).
The percentage populations of the other major countries of the European Union grew in this period. The largest growth in population share was that of Spain which increased its share from 8.3% to 9%. Both the UK’s and Italy’s share of the EU population grew by only 0.1%.
In spite of the change in Germany’s population share, it remained the largest population of the European Union.
Note that you CANNOT say that Germany’s population fell or that France’s population grew. These charts only show population share, not population numbers.
Pie Chart Graphics
The students will describe the graphic assigned to that student to the other students.
Describe a Pie Chart Worksheet