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By

Jan Sauermann

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Overlaying histograms in Stata

For analysing data and comparing distributions, I often want to overlay two histograms. Without further options, however, one distribution usually overlays the other and makes comparisons cumbersome. It is possible to set a few options to make the figure look nice. In this example, the bars of variable VAR2 have a red border and transparent…

For analysing data and comparing distributions, I often want to overlay two histograms. Without further options, however, one distribution usually overlays the other and makes comparisons cumbersome. It is possible to set a few options to make the figure look nice.

twoway ///
(hist VAR1, frac lcolor(gs12) fcolor(gs12)) /// 
(hist VAR2, frac fcolor(none) lcolor(red)) ///
, ///
legend(off) xtitle("VAR1 (red: VAR2)")

In this example, the bars of variable VAR2 have a red border and transparent body, whereas VAR1 is shown as in its default colors (both border and body is set to gs12).

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Responses to “Overlaying histograms in Stata”

  1. Diana

    Thanks. This is very helpful. Is there a way to overlay a normal curve on top of each histogram. STATA does not seem to like the “normal” option when using twoway

  2. Jan Sauermann

    Ah, I was not aware that this works only without using twoway. I just found this (a bit lengthy) workaround: https://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2010-10/msg00819.html
    I hope this helps!

  3. Andrew G

    Quite helpful Jan, thank you. I always forget how easy it is to overlay one kind of graph onto another in Stata.

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