Editing Hierarchy (section)

=={{anchor|Visually representing hierarchies}}Representing hierarchies==
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[[File:Maslow's hierarchy of needs.png|thumb|right|200px|[[Maslow's hierarchy of needs|Maslow's hierarchy of human needs]]. This is an example of a hierarchy visualized with a triangle diagram.  The hierarchical aspect represented here is that needs at lower levels of the pyramid are considered more basic and must be fulfilled before higher ones are met.]]
A hierarchy is typically depicted as a [[pyramid (geometry)|pyramid]], where the height of a level represents that level's status and width of a level represents the quantity of items at that level relative to the whole.<ref>{{cite book | title=Regions of War and Peace | publisher=University of Cambridge | author=Douglas Lemke | year=2002 | location=Cambridge | pages=49}}</ref> For example, the few [[Board of Directors|Directors]] of a company could be at the [[apex (geometry)|apex]], and the [[Base (geometry)|base]] could be thousands of people who have no subordinates.

These pyramids are often [[Diagram|diagrammed]] with a [[triangle]] diagram which serves to emphasize the size differences between the levels (but not all triangle/pyramid diagrams are hierarchical; for example, the 1992 [[History of USDA nutrition guides#Food Guide Pyramid|USDA food guide pyramid]]). An example of a triangle diagram appears to the right.

Another common representation of a hierarchical scheme is as a [[Tree structure|tree diagram]]. [[Phylogenetic trees]], [[charts]] showing the structure of {{section link||Organizations}}, and [[Bracket (tournament)|playoff brackets]] in sports are often illustrated this way.

More recently, as computers have allowed the storage and navigation of ever larger data sets, various methods have been developed to represent hierarchies in a manner that makes more efficient use of the available space on a computer's screen. Examples include [[fractal]] maps, [[treemapping|TreeMaps]] and [[Radial tree|Radial Trees]].