ggplot2 annotate on y-axis (outside of plot)

Question

I'm trying to add an annotation to the horizontal line on Y-axis. After reviewing similar questions, I created something similar, but not exactly what I want. Specifically, I want the text "High" to be placed on Y-axis (outside of the plot) below 6 (on the Y-axis). Here's what I've tried so far.

set.seed(57)
discharge <- data.frame(date = seq(as.Date("2011-01-01"), as.Date("2011-12-31"), by="days"),
                        discharge = rexp(365))

ggplot(discharge) +
  geom_line(aes(x = date, y = discharge)) +
  geom_hline(yintercept = 5.5, linetype= "dashed", color = "red") + 
  geom_text(aes(x = date[13], y = 5.5, label = "High"))

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

xilliam · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-09 09:52:19Z

14

Here is an attempt at what you want that uses annotate (instead of geom_text) along with coord_cartesian with clip = "off", similar to the answer provided by Maurits Evers here: Add text outside plot area. Notice the xlim must be set for this to work and that the x-axis coordinate is set manually by subtracting from the date input.

ggplot(discharge) +
  geom_line(aes(x = date, y = discharge)) +
  geom_hline(yintercept = 5.5, linetype= "dashed", color = "red") + 
  annotate("text", x = discharge$date[13]-30, y = 5.5, label = "High")+
  coord_cartesian(xlim = c(discharge$date[13], max(discharge$date)),  clip = 'off')

edited Mar 9, 2020 at 9:52

answered Mar 8, 2020 at 22:24

xilliam

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stefan · Accepted Answer · 2023-10-06 07:00:12Z

11

Answer recommended by R Language Collective

One option would be to add the annotation via the breaks= and labels= arguments of scale_y_continuous, i.e. add an additional break and respective label like so:

library(ggplot2)

set.seed(57)
discharge <- data.frame(
  date = seq(
    as.Date("2011-01-01"),
    as.Date("2011-12-31"),
    by = "days"
  ),
  discharge = rexp(365)
)

ggplot(discharge) +
  geom_line(aes(x = date, y = discharge)) +
  geom_hline(
    yintercept = 5.5,
    linetype = "dashed",
    color = "red"
  ) +
  scale_y_continuous(
    breaks = c(0, 2, 4, 6, 5.5),
    labels = c(0, 2, 4, 6, "High")
  )

edited Oct 6, 2023 at 7:00

answered Mar 8, 2020 at 22:21

stefan

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