How to Move, Customize, or Hide Legends in ggplot2
Legends are critical to clarify category labels. However, their default position on the right side of the plot can compress horizontal plot coordinates. ggplot2 allows you to relocate, reformat, or hide legend elements using the `theme()` configuration layer.
In This Tutorial
0.Live Code: Legend Positioning
1.Basic Position Constants (bottom, top, left, right)
2.Placing Legends Inside the Plot
3.Removing or Hiding Specific Scale Legends
4.Wrapping and Formatting Labels
0. Live Code: Legend Positioning
Legend configurations. Customize parameters using Python below, or upload your data to run R directly.
1. Basic Position Constants
Relocate the legend to preset margins around the plot panel using `legend.position`:
R / ggplot2
# Move legend to the bottom (horizontal layout)
ggplot(df, aes(x, y, color = group)) +
geom_point() +
theme(legend.position = "bottom")
# Hide the entire legend
ggplot(df, aes(x, y, color = group)) +
geom_point() +
theme(legend.position = "none")2. Placing Legends Inside the Plot
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For plots with empty regions (e.g. top left or bottom right), place the legend inside the plot coordinate box using coordinates between `c(0,0)` (bottom-left) and `c(1,1)` (top-right):
R / ggplot2
ggplot(df, aes(x, y, color = group)) +
geom_point() +
theme(
legend.position = c(0.15, 0.8), # place inside top-left
legend.background = element_rect(fill = "white", color = "gray80")
)3. Removing Specific Scale Legends
If you map variables to both color and size, but only want a legend for color, set the unwanted scale to `FALSE` in `guides()`:
R / ggplot2
ggplot(df, aes(x, y, color = group, size = count)) +
geom_point() +
guides(size = "none") # remove the size legend, keep color4. Wrapping and Formatting Labels
Wrap long category labels using the `stringr` library inside the scale functions:
R / ggplot2
library(stringr)
ggplot(df, aes(x, y, color = long_group_names)) +
geom_point() +
scale_color_discrete(labels = function(x) str_wrap(x, width = 10))Chart gallery
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