When used to visualize relative importance, it has the great advantage of an implied, absolute scale: you can see what's 50% without having to guess from the ax

When used to visualize relative importance, it has the great advantage of an implied, absolute scale: you can see what's 50% without having to guess from the axis what the value is. You can even eyeball a majority, as in chart [1], although the colors of two adjacent parties happen to be very similar to my vision. You would not be able to do that with a bar chart such as [2]. The pie chart should not be your go-to chart, but it has its place. [1] https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb2f0777c-cdf7-11e7-9dbb-291a884dd8c6?source=next&quality=highest&width=700 https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/htt... [2] https://blogs.ft.com/the-world/files/2017/09/bar-chart.png https://blogs.ft.com/the-world/files/2017/09/bar-chart.png