How to reduce space between bars in ggplot2

Problem

We want to reduce the space between bars using geom_bar with ggplot2.

Vertical bar plot

Horizontal bar plot

library(ggthemes)
library(ggplot2)
df <- data.frame(x = c("firm", "vendor"), y = c(50, 20))

# Vertical
ggplot(df, aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", width = 0.4) + 
  theme_tufte() + 
  labs(x = "", y = "")

# Horizontal
ggplot(df, aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity", width = 0.4) + 
  theme_tufte() +  coord_flip() +
  labs(x = "", y = "")

Solution

We just need to to introduce theme(aspect.ratio = xx), then we need to play with the ratio to find the desired width. To flip cartesian coordinates we use coord_flip()

# Vertical
ggplot(df, aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") + 
  theme_tufte() + theme(aspect.ratio = 2) +
  labs(x = "", y = "")

# Horizontal
ggplot(df, aes(x = x, y = y)) + 
  geom_bar(stat = "identity") + 
  theme_tufte() + theme(aspect.ratio = .2) +
  coord_flip() +
  labs(x = "", y = "")

Results

Vertical bar plot

Horizontal bar plot

Related posts

• How to remove whiskers in a boxplot with the R Base Package