Make_stunning_line_chart

Load libraries

library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(gapminder)
library(scales)

Check data

?gapminder
dim(gapminder)

## [1] 1704    6

str(gapminder)

## tibble [1,704 × 6] (S3: tbl_df/tbl/data.frame)
##  $ country  : Factor w/ 142 levels "Afghanistan",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
##  $ continent: Factor w/ 5 levels "Africa","Americas",..: 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 ...
##  $ year     : int [1:1704] 1952 1957 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 ...
##  $ lifeExp  : num [1:1704] 28.8 30.3 32 34 36.1 ...
##  $ pop      : int [1:1704] 8425333 9240934 10267083 11537966 13079460 14880372 12881816 13867957 16317921 22227415 ...
##  $ gdpPercap: num [1:1704] 779 821 853 836 740 ...

Plot population for the US

usa <- gapminder %>% filter(continent == "Americas", country == "United States")
ggplot(usa, aes(x = year, y = pop)) + 
        geom_line(color = "#0099f9", size = 1) + 
        geom_point(color = "#0099f9", size = 5) +
        ## label the point, nudge need to related to the y value
        geom_label(aes(label = round(pop/1e6, 0)), nudge_y = 20e6, label.size = 0.1) +
        theme_classic() +
        labs(title = "Average life expectancy in US", 
             subtitle = "Data from 1952 to 2007", 
             caption = "Source: Gapminder dataset",
             x = "Year", 
             y = "Population") +
        theme(plot.title = element_text(color = "#0099f9", size = 20, face = "bold", hjust = 0.5),
              plot.subtitle = element_text(size = 12, face = "bold", hjust = 0.5),
              plot.caption = element_text(face = "italic", hjust = 0),
              axis.title.x = element_text(size = 16, face = "bold"),
              axis.title.y = element_text(size = 16, face = "italic"), 
              # add a border to the whole plot
              plot.background = element_rect(color = "black", fill = NA, size = 1)) +
        #use limits to expand y axis to get more space in the up and bottom
        expand_limits(y = c(125000000, 325000000)) +
        # add unit to y label, 1e-6 means y/1e6
        scale_y_continuous(labels = unit_format(unit = "M", scale = 1e-6)) 

Multiple lines on the same chart

north <- gapminder %>% filter(continent == "Americas", country %in% c("United States", "Canada", "Mexico"))
ggplot(north, aes(x = year, y = lifeExp, group = country)) +
        geom_line(aes(color = country), size = 1) + 
        geom_point(aes(color = country), size = 5) +
        theme_classic()