Using Function fviz_nbclust(). can be used to compute three different methods ( elbow, silhouette, gap statistics)

library(factoextra)

## Warning: package 'factoextra' was built under R version 3.6.2

## Loading required package: ggplot2

## Registered S3 methods overwritten by 'ggplot2':
##   method         from 
##   [.quosures     rlang
##   c.quosures     rlang
##   print.quosures rlang

## Welcome! Want to learn more? See two factoextra-related books at https://goo.gl/ve3WBa

library(NbClust)

Data: We use USArrests data

# Standardize the data
df <- scale(USArrests)
head(df)

##                Murder   Assault   UrbanPop         Rape
## Alabama    1.24256408 0.7828393 -0.5209066 -0.003416473
## Alaska     0.50786248 1.1068225 -1.2117642  2.484202941
## Arizona    0.07163341 1.4788032  0.9989801  1.042878388
## Arkansas   0.23234938 0.2308680 -1.0735927 -0.184916602
## California 0.27826823 1.2628144  1.7589234  2.067820292
## Colorado   0.02571456 0.3988593  0.8608085  1.864967207

Using the function

# Elbow method
fviz_nbclust(df, kmeans, method = "wss") +
geom_vline(xintercept = 4, linetype = 2)+
labs(subtitle = "Elbow method")

Silhouette Method

fviz_nbclust(df, kmeans, method = "silhouette")+
labs(subtitle = "Silhouette method")

Gap Statistics

# Gap statistic
# nboot = 50 to keep the function speedy.
# recommended value: nboot= 500 for your analysis.
# Use verbose = FALSE to hide computing progression.
set.seed(123)
fviz_nbclust(df, kmeans, nstart = 25, method = "gap_stat", nboot = 50)+
labs(subtitle = "Gap statistic method")

Looking at all the three, it is possible to assign k=2, as the optimal number of clusters.

NbClust() function: 30 indices for choosing the best number of clusters. Below function does it for K-means

library("NbClust")
nb <- NbClust(df, distance = "euclidean", min.nc = 2,
max.nc = 10, method = "kmeans")

## *** : The Hubert index is a graphical method of determining the number of clusters.
##                 In the plot of Hubert index, we seek a significant knee that corresponds to a 
##                 significant increase of the value of the measure i.e the significant peak in Hubert
##                 index second differences plot. 
## 

## *** : The D index is a graphical method of determining the number of clusters. 
##                 In the plot of D index, we seek a significant knee (the significant peak in Dindex
##                 second differences plot) that corresponds to a significant increase of the value of
##                 the measure. 
##  
## ******************************************************************* 
## * Among all indices:                                                
## * 11 proposed 2 as the best number of clusters 
## * 2 proposed 3 as the best number of clusters 
## * 1 proposed 4 as the best number of clusters 
## * 1 proposed 5 as the best number of clusters 
## * 7 proposed 6 as the best number of clusters 
## * 1 proposed 9 as the best number of clusters 
## * 1 proposed 10 as the best number of clusters 
## 
##                    ***** Conclusion *****                            
##  
## * According to the majority rule, the best number of clusters is  2 
##  
##  
## *******************************************************************

So the best number of cluster is 2. min.nc and max.nc are minimum and maximum number of clusters respectively.