How can I control the order of the bars with ggplot2

Question

I am trying to use the data in the dput below to produce a horizontally aligned side by side ggplot barplot

Desired output

I need a side by side barplot that is arranged in the flipped version in this order:

"Younger individuals" in violetred3 at the top
"55+ in gray77 at the middle
70+ in steelblue at the bottom

Current progress

At the moment, I have the following code:

ggplot(AF.dummy, aes(fill=Agegroup, y=sumofweights, x=reorder(Place,sumofweights))) +
  geom_bar(position="dodge", stat="identity",width = 0.75)+scale_fill_manual(values = c("steelblue","violetred3","gray77"))+
  geom_text(aes(label=Response_pct), vjust=0.5,hjust=0.5, color='black',size=2, position=position_dodge(width=0.9))+
  xlab('')+ ylab('Survey response (%)')+ theme_classic()+ scale_y_continuous(expand = c(0,NA), limits = c(0, 110))+theme(axis.text = element_text(size=25),plot.title = element_text(color="black", size=14, face="bold.italic"),
                                                               axis.text.x = element_blank(),
                                                               axis.title=element_text(size=25),
                                                               axis.text.y = element_text(colour = "black"),
                                                               legend.text = element_text(size = 25),
                                                               legend.position = "bottom")+coord_flip()

However, this produces Younger individuals on top but in gray, 70+ as violet in the middle and 55-69 in blue at the bottom. Even when trying different sequences of the colors, this does not put the bars in the orders that I need it to.

structure(list(Place = c("a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "a", "k", "k", 
"k", "d", "d", "d", "e", "e", "e", "y", "y", "y", "y", "y", "y", 
"n", "n", "n", "s", "s", "s", "y", "y", "y", "e", "e", "e", "a", 
"a", "a", "n", "n", "n", "n", "n", "n", "m", "m", "m"), Full_Question = c("How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?"
), Agegroup = c("55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", 
"70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", 
"55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+", "Younger individuals"
), sumofweights = c(40.5267641630215, 40.0599884082414, 49.8850932240653, 
88.2272464391841, 89.6683573987055, 87.0721200154442, 24.2153456875521, 
21.8526096685293, 28.8586215334053, 31.3193116688862, 37.9323356937974, 
30.4203477914831, 93.7928409385601, 95.6887643725211, 92.4444551282296, 
88.2382569688424, 88.8346819477341, 82.7930606656007, 95.9438110968709, 
93.585465536874, 95.6929909239288, 91.3775427133175, 91.4190494705697, 
88.6228191085142, 43.2470752073293, 46.8078562440572, 49.0305923706361, 
15.6955797447921, 9.93685539029956, 19.5632067880936, 97.8278268705863, 
99.0720566387276, 97.373146423847, 94.528643616569, 96.6159714111715, 
94.6539500397186, 98.8983300765884, 98.1456203247728, 97.9251511366201, 
6.95189707677415, 10.4796004809264, 7.94764360599454, 82.9482534171168, 
81.6443772785483, 81.247100231254), Response_pct = c("41%", "40%", 
"50%", "88%", "90%", "87%", "24%", "22%", "29%", "31%", "38%", 
"30%", "94%", "96%", "92%", "88%", "89%", "83%", "96%", "94%", 
"96%", "91%", "91%", "89%", "43%", "47%", "49%", "16%", "10%", 
"20%", "98%", "99%", "97%", "95%", "97%", "95%", "99%", "98%", 
"98%", "7%", "10%", "8%", "83%", "82%", "81%")), row.names = c(NA, 
-45L), groups = structure(list(Place = c("a", "d", "e", "k", 
"m", "n", "s", "y"), Full_Question = c("How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", "How old is your?", 
"How old is your?", "How old is your?"), .rows = structure(list(
    c(1L, 2L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 6L, 34L, 35L, 36L), 10:12, c(13L, 14L, 
    15L, 31L, 32L, 33L), 7:9, 43:45, c(22L, 23L, 24L, 37L, 38L, 
    39L, 40L, 41L, 42L), 25:27, c(16L, 17L, 18L, 19L, 20L, 21L, 
    28L, 29L, 30L)), ptype = integer(0), class = c("vctrs_list_of", 
"vctrs_vctr", "list"))), row.names = c(NA, 8L), class = c("tbl_df", 
"tbl", "data.frame"), .drop = TRUE), class = c("grouped_df", 
"tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"))

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 08 '20 at 16:02

Just about every question (on SO) that includes ggplot2 and "order of ..." is addressed with the use of factor. Ggplot2 will honor the order suggested by the factor levels.

unique(AF.dummy$Agegroup)
# [1] "55-69"               "70+"                 "Younger individuals"
AF.dummy$Agegroup <- factor(AF.dummy$Agegroup, levels=c("Younger individuals", "55-69", "70+"))

How can I control the order of the bars with ggplot2

1 Answers1