How to specify your own (not numerical) categories on the x-axis of a box plot?

I want to create a box plot where on the x-axis I have not numbers but categories, e.g. countries (France, Belgium, Netherlands etc). The y-axis just numerical, e.g., the box height represents GDP per person in a particular country. How do I specify the x-axis?

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

Here is one way

countries = {'Botswana','Lesotho','Iceland'};

x1 = randn(1000,3);
x2 = rand(1,3);

figure
boxplot(x1)
set(gca,'XTick',1:3,'XTickLabel',countries)

figure
bar(x2)
set(gca,'XTick',1:3,'XTickLabel',countries)

You said "box plot", but what you described sounds more like a "bar chart", so I gave you a simple example of each.

[Svetlana]

yes sorry I meant bar chart

[Svetlana]

Thanks a lot for this answer, I tried it and it works but now I have a next problem: I have 34 countries and clearly all names do not fit on x-axis if they are written horizontally. Can I rotate them, ie write the names "vertically", if you know what I mean?

[the cyclist]

It's not super-easy. See this page for some suggestions on that:

http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/en/data/1-15TK6/

Personally, I like the xticklabel_rotate function that is mentioned about halfway down that page.

Answer 2

[Sabiha Mahzabeen]

How can i get histogram where y-axis with percentages and x-axis with categorical variables?

Airline={'Air Canada', 'Delta Airline','American Airline'};

y lebel=[.20 .35 .25 ];