Bubble plot | the R Graph Gallery

A bubble chart is a scatterplot

A bubble chart is basically a scatterplot with a third numeric variable used for circle size. Thus, remember all the tips described in the scatterplot section also apply here.

Scatterplot section

Step by step with ggplot2

ggplot2 allows to create bubble chart thanks to the geom_point() function. Next examples will lead you through the process step by step:

Basic bubble chart

The most basic bubble chart you can build with R and gglot2 with geom_point()

Control bubble size

Control bubble size with scale_size(): allows to set minimum and maximum size.

Improve appearance

Make your chart pretty with nice color scale, general theme, stroke around cirle and more..

Interactive version

Here is an interactive bubble chart built in R, thanks to the ggplotly() function of the plotly library. Try to hover circles to get a tooltip, or select an area of interest for zooming. Double click to reinitialize.

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