Category Axis

If the global configuration is used, labels are drawn from one of the label arrays included in the chart data. If only data.labels is defined, this will be used. If data.xLabels is defined and the axis is horizontal, this will be used. Similarly, if data.yLabels is defined and the axis is vertical, this property will be used. Using both xLabels and yLabels together can create a chart that uses strings for both the X and Y axes.

Specifying any of the settings above defines the x-axis as type: 'category' if not defined otherwise. For more fine-grained control of category labels, it is also possible to add labels as part of the category axis definition. Doing so does not apply the global defaults.

Category Axis Definition

Globally:

javascript

let chart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: ...
    data: {
        labels: ['January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June'],
        datasets: ...
    }
});

As part of axis definition:

javascript

let chart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: ...
    data: ...
    options: {
        scales: {
            x: {
                type: 'category',
                labels: ['January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June']
            }
        }
    }
});

Configuration Options

Category Axis specific options

Namespace: options.scales[scaleId]

Name	Type	Description
`min`	`string`\|`number`	The minimum item to display. more...
`max`	`string`\|`number`	The maximum item to display. more...
`labels`	`string[]`\|`string[][]`	An array of labels to display. When an individual label is an array of strings, each item is rendered on a new line.

!!!include(axes/cartesian/_common.md)!!!

!!!include(axes/_common.md)!!!

Tick Configuration

!!!include(axes/cartesian/_common_ticks.md)!!!

!!!include(axes/_common_ticks.md)!!!

Min Max Configuration

For both the min and max properties, the value must be string in the labels array or numeric value as an index of a label in that array. In the example below, the x axis would only display "March" through "June".

javascript

let chart = new Chart(ctx, {
    type: 'line',
    data: {
        datasets: [{
            data: [10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60]
        }],
        labels: ['January', 'February', 'March', 'April', 'May', 'June']
    },
    options: {
        scales: {
            x: {
                min: 'March'
            }
        }
    }
});

Internal data format

Internally category scale uses label indices