Create basic scatter plot using ggplot2

Introduction

We will be creating basic scatter plots using ggplot2. ggplot2 works based on grammar of language which you can learn more here

Procedure

We will be working with MPG data set present in-built in ggplot2. Few of the rows of the dataset are as follows:

ggplot2 has the following basic formula :

ggplot(data = <DATA>) + <GEOM_FUNCTION>(mapping = aes(<MAPPINGS>))

where,

<DATA> is our dataframe. A dataframe is a rectangular collection of variables (in the columns) and observations (in the rows).

<GEOM_FUNCTION> is the type of plot we want to display. All possible types of plots we can create can be viewed here.

Note: We can add more components to the graph using the ‘+’ operator. Learn more about it here

<MAPPINGS> is where we specify the X axis data, Y axis data, color, etc.

We will create basic scatterplot which plots the displ (engine displacement) column with the hwy(fuel efficiency on the highway) column.

Thus our <DATA> is ggplot2::mpg and <GEOM_FUNCTION> is geom_point since we are creating scatterplot and <MAPPINGS> is aes(x=displ, y=hwy) where we specify the x axis data as displ and y axis data as hwy.

Code

The code below creates basic scatter plot.

 
library(ggplot2)

# create basic scatter plot for displ and hwy columns
ggplot(data = ggplot2::mpg) + geom_point(mapping = aes(x=displ, y=hwy))

And the output of above code is:

Conclusion

Thus we have successfully created basic scatter plot using ggplot2.

References

• https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/
• https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/reference/