A system and method for recognition of hand-drawn charts in ink input is provided. A chart recognizer may be provided that may recognize a hand-drawn diagram or chart in ink input. The chart recognizer may include a connectivity-based recognizer for recognizing a hand-drawn chart having connected areas such as a pie chart, a connected container recognizer for recognizing a hand-drawn chart having connected containers such as a cycle diagram, and a curve recognizer for recognizing a hand-drawn chart having a curve. The connected container recognizer may also recognize a hand-drawn chart having intersecting containers such as a Venn diagram or a hand-drawn chart having a container that may include another container such as a target diagram.