diff --git a/superset-frontend/src/explore/store.js b/superset-frontend/src/explore/store.js
index 9b33aaa49f6a9..16ad2324c0922 100644
--- a/superset-frontend/src/explore/store.js
+++ b/superset-frontend/src/explore/store.js
@@ -41,7 +41,8 @@ export function getControlsState(state, inputFormData) {
    * */
   // Getting a list of active control names for the current viz
   const formData = { ...inputFormData };
-  const vizType = formData.viz_type || 'table';
+  const vizType =
+    formData.viz_type || state.common.conf.DEFAULT_VIZ_TYPE || 'table';
 
   handleDeprecatedControls(formData);
 
diff --git a/superset/config.py b/superset/config.py
index 94abd64cd997f..a9d52ae1961ff 100644
--- a/superset/config.py
+++ b/superset/config.py
@@ -114,6 +114,9 @@ def _try_json_readsha(  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
 VERSION_SHA_LENGTH = 8
 VERSION_SHA = _try_json_readsha(VERSION_INFO_FILE, VERSION_SHA_LENGTH)
 
+# default viz used in chart explorer
+DEFAULT_VIZ_TYPE = "table"
+
 ROW_LIMIT = 50000
 VIZ_ROW_LIMIT = 10000
 # max rows retreieved when requesting samples from datasource in explore view
diff --git a/superset/views/base.py b/superset/views/base.py
index cb486c51357ab..9236570f8f7f6 100644
--- a/superset/views/base.py
+++ b/superset/views/base.py
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@
     "DISABLE_DATASET_SOURCE_EDIT",
     "ENABLE_JAVASCRIPT_CONTROLS",
     "DEFAULT_SQLLAB_LIMIT",
+    "DEFAULT_VIZ_TYPE",
     "SQL_MAX_ROW",
     "SUPERSET_WEBSERVER_DOMAINS",
     "SQLLAB_SAVE_WARNING_MESSAGE",