# An animated age pyramid in Power BI, with three fields

> Getting started with Pyramid Plume: prepare a population table, insert the visual, sort ages with no sort column, show shares and pick a year.

- Language: English
- Web page: https://plumevisuals.com/en/tutorials/pyramid-plume-prise-en-main
- Published: 2026-10-21
- Visual: Pyramid Plume, technical reference: https://plumevisuals.com/ai/visuals/population-pyramid.md
- If an option name in this tutorial differs from the technical reference, the reference is right (it is generated from the visual's code).

## In short

**What is an age pyramid?** It is a horizontal bar chart that shows how a population splits by age and sex: one row per age (or age band), the youngest at the bottom, men on one side, women on the other. Its shape tells a story: a wide base for a young population, a bulge for a large generation (the baby boom), a dip for the births missing during a war.

Mini example. A town has 120 men and 115 women aged 0 to 19, and 40 men and 70 women aged 80 and over: the bottom row is almost symmetrical, the top one clearly leans toward women.

- **What the visual does.** Pyramid Plume draws this pyramid from three fields, puts ages in the right order with no sort column ("5-9" before "10-14", "100+" at the top), shows counts or percentages with each side's total; with premium (★), it groups single ages into bands and plays the years with a ▶ button: the pyramid changes before your eyes, like the animations of national statistics offices. The same visual also draws butterfly charts: two measures face to face (managers and employees, budget and actual).
- **When to use it.** Demographics of an area, age pyramid of a company's staff, of an association's members, of a hospital's patients; any comparison of two groups category by category.
- **When to choose something else.** More than two groups to compare, or one value over time: Bar Plume or Line Plume.
- **What you will learn.** Prepare a population table, create a measure, insert the visual, pick a year, show percentages and labels.
- **What you need:** Power BI Desktop, the Pyramid Plume visual installed (see [the common basics](/en/tutorials/bien-demarrer-visuels-plume)), a table with an age, a sex and a number of people. The sample report **PlumePyramid-EN**, in your ["Downloads"](/en/account/downloads) area, shows a 2020 pyramid with a territory slicer (page 1), a pyramid in %, a butterfly and a tornado (page 2), and the ★ features (page 3), including the pyramid animated from 1975 to 2050.

## The data to provide

**The shape.** One row per age (or band), per sex and, if you want to animate, per year: an age, a sex, a year and a number of people.

| Year | Band | Sex | Residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 0-19 | Men | 120 |
| 2020 | 0-19 | Women | 115 |
| 2020 | 20-39 | Men | 98 |
| 2020 | 20-39 | Women | 101 |
| 2020 | 40-59 | Men | 131 |
| 2020 | 40-59 | Women | 136 |
| 2020 | 60-79 | Men | 92 |
| 2020 | 60-79 | Women | 104 |
| 2020 | 80+ | Men | 40 |
| 2020 | 80+ | Women | 70 |

To try without a file: **Modeling › New table**, then paste (year 2000 is used for the animation):

```dax
Population =
DATATABLE (
    "Year", INTEGER, "Band", STRING, "Sex", STRING, "Residents", INTEGER,
    {
        { 2000, "0-19", "Men", 131 }, { 2000, "0-19", "Women", 126 },
        { 2000, "20-39", "Men", 125 }, { 2000, "20-39", "Women", 122 },
        { 2000, "40-59", "Men", 110 }, { 2000, "40-59", "Women", 112 },
        { 2000, "60-79", "Men", 70 }, { 2000, "60-79", "Women", 84 },
        { 2000, "80+", "Men", 21 }, { 2000, "80+", "Women", 45 },
        { 2020, "0-19", "Men", 120 }, { 2020, "0-19", "Women", 115 },
        { 2020, "20-39", "Men", 98 }, { 2020, "20-39", "Women", 101 },
        { 2020, "40-59", "Men", 131 }, { 2020, "40-59", "Women", 136 },
        { 2020, "60-79", "Men", 92 }, { 2020, "60-79", "Women", 104 },
        { 2020, "80+", "Men", 40 }, { 2020, "80+", "Women", 70 }
    }
)
```

**The measure.** The **Value** well expects a **measure** (a calculation that Power BI redoes for the current filters, written in DAX; see the [glossary](/en/tutorials/bien-demarrer-visuels-plume#glossary)):

```dax
Number of residents = SUM ( Population[Residents] )   -- adds the residents of each age and each sex
```

**Pitfalls.**
- No need to make men negative (the usual stacked-bar trick): both sides start from the center. If your measure is already negative, the visual reads it as positive.
- The age can be a number (0, 1, 2… 100) or a text ("0-4", "5 to 9", "100+", "under 5"): the visual reads the number and sorts by itself. No sort column is needed.
- With several years in the table, pick one (slicer or filter); the play axis ★ year must be a column (a whole number or a date), not a measure.

## Step by step

1. Click the **Pyramid Plume** icon in the **Visualizations** pane: an empty visual appears with the hint "Add fields to get started".
2. Drag `Population[Band]` to **Age (or age band, category)**.
3. Drag `Population[Sex]` to **Side (sex or any two-value field)**.
4. Drag the `Number of residents` measure to **Value (or two measures face to face)**. The pyramid appears: men on the left, women on the right, "0-19" at the bottom, "80+" at the top, with each side's total and share at the top.
5. Add a slicer with `Population[Year]` and pick *2020*: the pyramid shows that year (without a slicer, it adds up every year of the table).
6. To put the ages on one side: **Format › Category axis › Position** = *Left*; **Labels** = *Every 5 years* for a lighter axis.
7. To read shares instead of counts: **Format › Pyramid › Displayed values › Show** = *% of the total population*.
8. To see the values: turn on **Format › Data labels › Show**.
9. To put women on the left: **Format › Pyramid › Displayed values › Swap sides**. Headers and colors follow.
10. Click a bar: the other visuals of the page filter on that band and sex; the selection stays when the year changes. Click an empty area to clear it.

## Troubleshooting

| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Bands are not in order | Labels without numbers ("Young", "Seniors") | The visual then keeps the model order: sort the column by an order column, or use labels with ages |
| Both sides carry the measure name | No field in **Side**: two measures face to face | Drag the sex to **Side** and keep a single measure in **Value** |
| Message "only … and … are drawn" | The Side field has more than two values (e.g. "Not stated") | Filter out the third value, or map it into a two-value column |
| The pyramid adds up every year | No year is selected | Filter one year with a slicer, or drag the year to **Play axis ★** to animate it |
| With the play axis ★, bars jump from one year to the next without gliding | Animations turned off (**Format › Style › Animations**, or the system setting) | Turn animations back on; **Format › Playback ★ › Animated transitions** must be on too |
| No label although **Show** is on | Rows too short (many single ages) | Lower **Minimum row height**, use bands in the data or group ages ★ (**Format › Ages and categories › Group ages**) |

## Key takeaways

- Three fields are enough: **Age**, **Side**, **Value**; ages are ordered automatically.
- Everything on this page is free. A year in **Play axis ★** animates the pyramid (premium feature, "Premium preview" watermark without a key).
- Counts, % of the total or % of each side: **Format › Pyramid › Show**.
- ★ Bands are computed in the visual (**Format › Ages and categories › Group ages**); the surplus of one side, median and mean ages and birth years are ★ too.
- Without **Side**, two measures face each other: that is a butterfly chart.

**Going further:** the [use cases](/en/tutorials/pyramid-plume-cas-pratiques) (generations, comparisons, indicators), the [fields and settings reference](/en/tutorials/pyramid-plume-champs-et-reglages), [the basics shared by every Plume visual](/en/tutorials/bien-demarrer-visuels-plume), the [visual's page](/en/visuals/population-pyramid) and [support](/en/support).