ggplot2 is a part of the tidyverse collection of R packages. It's used to create powerful, layered, and customizable data visualizations.

To use it, load the libraries:

library(tidyverse)
library(ggplot2)

And disable scientific notation to make plots more readable:

options(scipen = 999)

Basic Structure of a ggplot2 Plot

Every ggplot2 visualization is constructed in layers:

ggplot(data, aes(x, y)) +
  geom_function()

• data: the dataset being used;
• aes(): aesthetic mappings (define how variables are mapped to axes or other properties);
• geom_*(): geometry layer (determines how the data will be displayed, such as bars, points, or lines).

Summary