How to create pie charts in R

What are pie charts?

A pie chart is a circular graphical representation that is further subdivided into multiple slices according to the provided numerical values.

How to create a pie chart in R

There are various libraries available in the R programming language to create different types of graphs. We can make a pie chart in R by using the function pie().

pie() function in R

This function accepts positive input values. Various other parameters can be used for this function such as:

  • color
  • title
  • radius
  • labels

Syntax

Let’s discuss the basic syntax of creating a pie chart in R:


Pie(x, labels, radius, main, col, clockwise)

Parameters

pie() method in R programming accepts the above arguments as above:

  • x: shows the positive input values for your chart.

  • labels: illustrates the heading or description of each slice of your chart.

  • radius: shows the radius of the circle regarding your chart. Its value must be between -1 and +1.

  • main: This indicates the title of your graph.

  • col: is used for showing the color palette.

  • clockwise: we must set a value to draw the pie charts’ slices clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Code

The image below is the output generated by these lines of code. It takes states ranking x and labels arguments in the pie() method.

# states rankings
x <- c(40, 30, 60, 21)
labels <- c("California", "Washington", "Texas", "Florida")
#set name for your file
png(file = "states.png")
# call the function to plot the Pie Chart
pie(x,labels)
Simple  Pie Chart
Simple Pie Chart

Set colors

To get colors according to each slice, pass the col attribute through the c() method above.


pie(x, labels, col = c("red", "yellow", "green", "blue"))

Code

This method ranks values, state labels, and multiple colors of slices.

x <- c(40,30,60,21)
labels <- c("California","Washington","Texas","Florida")
# set name for your file
png(file = "states.png")
# call the function to plot the Pie Chart
pie(x,labels,col=c("red","yellow","green","blue"))
Pie Chart with Multiple Colors
Pie Chart with Multiple Colors

Graph legend

The legend illustrates legend keys or different entities on the plotted area of the graph. We can also create a legend for the pie chart by using the following code.

The legend() method in line 9 generates a legend on the pie chart’s top right corner.

# Data for the graph
x <- c(40,30,60,21)
labels <- c("California", "Washington", "Texas", "Florida")
piepercent <- round(100 * x / sum(x), 1)
#set name for your file
png(file = "states.png")
# call the function to plot the Pie Chart
pie(x, labels = piepercent,
main = "Rankings pie chart",
col = c("red", "yellow", "green", "blue"))
legend("topright",
c("California", "Washington", "Texas", "Florida"),
cex = 0.8,
fill = c("red", "yellow", "green", "blue"))
Pie Cart With Legend (Upper Right Corner)
Pie Cart With Legend (Upper Right Corner)

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