Radial hierarchy: center root, rings outward for sub-levels.
A free, animated sunburst you can read here or embed on any website, from Scrollchart.
Sunburst
A sunburst arranges a hierarchy in concentric rings radiating outward from a center point. The innermost ring shows top-level categories; each subsequent ring subdivides its parent arc into children. Arc angle encodes share: a segment spanning 90 degrees holds 25% of its parent's total.
The center can be left empty (showing the total in text) or filled with the root node. The outermost ring tends to contain the most specific, smallest items, which makes labels there tight. Interactive versions let the reader click a segment to re-root and zoom into a subtree. The static version works best with two to three levels of hierarchy and roughly equal distribution across categories.
Read from the inside outward. The inner ring is the primary split; outer rings subdivide each inner slice proportionally. A wide arc at any level means that category holds a large share of its parent. A very thin arc indicates a minor contributor.
Because arc length varies with radius, outer-ring arcs are physically longer than inner-ring arcs for the same angular span. This can make outer segments feel larger than they are proportionally. When precise comparison between levels is important, check the numeric labels rather than relying on visual area estimates. The sunburst excels at showing the overall structure of a hierarchy rather than precise magnitudes.
Editorial pages where a quick visual replaces a wall of text
Content-marketing posts that need a clean, branded illustration
Source & accuracy
This sunburst is an editorial illustration built to represent the concept accurately. Where it shows figures, they are typical or representative values chosen to make the relationship clear, not a single underlying dataset. The diagram and its explainer are reviewed and maintained centrally, and updated over time as understanding improves.
Hierarchical data in concentric rings
Sunburst diagrams encode nested categorical data radially. Each ring represents a level of hierarchy, with the center as root, and subsequent rings decomposing that root into successively finer categories. The angle swept by each segment encodes its proportional value within its parent category. This radial structure naturally shows part-to-whole relationships at every level.
This layout excels when you need to show both the part-to-whole relationships within each level and how those parts roll up to larger totals. A single glance from center outward traces the path from root to leaf. The nested rings create a natural drill-down feeling that matches hierarchical thinking.
When to favor radial over rectangular
Unlike treemaps, sunbursts use the full 360-degree space, making them less prone to aspect-ratio distortion. They are especially useful for taxonomies with a clear root (e.g., business division structure, library classification, product categories) where the center-outward narrative feels natural. The circular form also works well when the root is meaningful and you want to emphasize it.
The circular form does reduce readability when segments are very thin, and label placement in the outer rings can become crowded with many fine-grained categories. Very deep hierarchies (more than 4 levels) can also become hard to follow in both sunbursts and treemaps, though sunbursts typically degrade more gracefully.
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Reference
What this is
A free, embeddable, animated sunburst for any website.
Who uses it
Data journalists, Researchers & academics, Content marketers, News organizations.
How to embed
Copy one line of HTML. No signup. No watermark. Works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Substack, plain HTML.
File size
iframe embed, ~80 KB gzipped (loads on demand, does not block your page paint).
License
Free forever. Editorial explainer text included; updated centrally over time.
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Frequently asked questions
Where can I get a free animated "Sunburst" for my website?
Scrollchart provides "Sunburst" as a free, embeddable animated diagram you can add to any website with one line of HTML. No signup is required and there is no watermark. The diagram and its explainer text are served from scrollchart.com, so the embed stays current without any maintenance on your end.
How do I embed a sunburst in a blog post or article?
Paste the one-line HTML snippet from the Scrollchart diagram page into your post editor. It works in WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, and plain HTML with no plugin required. The animated diagram and its explainer text load from scrollchart.com and render directly in your page DOM.