ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 introduces ggplot2, the core data visualization package within the tidyverse. ggplot2 is an ideal package for visualization of US Census data, especially when obtained in tidy format by the tidycensus package. It has powerful capacity for basic charts, group-wise comparisons, and advanced chart types such as maps. This chapter includes several examples of how R users can visualize data from the US Census Bureau using ggplot2. Chart types explored in this chapter include basic chart types; faceted, or “small multiples” plots; population pyramids; margin of error plots for ACS data; and advanced visualizations using extensions to ggplot2. Finally, the chapter introduces the plotly package for interactive visualization, which can be used to convert ggplot2 objects to interactive web graphics.
