Creating Sankey Chart -The Real Easy Way

Author:Bhuvaneswari Selvamani

Date:09/25/2025

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Why Sankey Charts Grab Our Attention

1. They Tell a Story Through Flow

• Sankey charts visualize movement—of insights, users, or any resource—making abstract data feel dynamic and alive.

·         The thickness of the lines instantly communicates magnitude, so we intuitively grasp what’s important.

2. They Use Design Psychology

• Proximity: Related nodes are placed close together, helping our brains link concepts effortlessly.

• Similarity: Consistent colors and shapes reinforce meaning without cluttering the chart.

• Continuity: Smooth, curved paths lead the eye naturally from one point to another, creating a sense of motion and clarity.

So, when well-designed, they don’t just show data—they whisper the story behind it.

Let’s see an example how a Sankey chart can be created. Here we have considered a dataset from which our idea is to demonstrate Gut lining health based on different Ethnicity. This is going to be a two level chart.

We have Self-identity(Ethnicity) as one level and by using Calculated field we have created the Gut Categories as another level.

Step 1: Under marks in Viz Extensions, select Add Extension

Step 2: It takes us to Browse Viz Extensions page, there we can see Sankey as the first option.

Step 3:Select and click Open

Step 4:Now we can see Sankey under the Marks section.

Step 5:Drag and drop Self-Identity on Level

Step 6:Now drag and drop Gut Categories to Level

Step 7: Avoided Null values using Filter options

Step 8:Now let's arrange the chart using Format Extensions

Step 9:Choose the color and modify Link and Level padding as required

Step 10:Now our Sankey chart is created successfully

By following the above steps we can achieve the 2 level Sankey chart, the same way we can also derive the 3 level Sankey chart too.

As part of understanding we can also click on each box and check the flow of data, like explained below for reference

From the above flow we get to know that the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity falls in all Gut Categories. We can check these different scenarios for all the levels used in the visualization.

Thank You