Changing the scale of a plot in R with ggplot

Question

I created a plot in R with ggplot2, however if I want to change the scale of the y-axis my plot shifts down (see second image). So if I specify the scale of the y-axis, the 0 will be below the plot and the distance between the title and plot will increase. How can I get my plot back up? So, it looks like the first picture? And everything is visible.

Code first plot:

plot <- ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, color = Sepal.Length)) +
  geom_count() +
  labs(title = "Iris dataset",
       x = "Sepal Length",
       y = "Sepal Width") +
  scale_y_discrete(limits = c(0:5))

plot

Without specifying the scale of the y-axis, my plot looks like:

If, I specify the scale of the y-axis with scale_y_discrete(limits = c(0:4)) my plot looks like this: Code

plot 2: plot <- ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, color = Sepal.Length)) +
  geom_count() +
  labs(title = "Iris dataset",
       x = "Sepal Length",
       y = "Sepal Width") +
  scale_y_discrete(limits = c(0:5))

plot

Answer 1

I would instead use ylim() :

ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, color = Sepal.Length)) +
    geom_count() +
    labs(title = "Iris dataset",
         x = "Sepal Length",
         y = "Sepal Width") +
    ylim(0, 5)

From help("scale_y_discrete") :

For simple manipulation of scale labels and limits, you may wish to use labs() and lims() instead.

You can alternatively use scale_y_continuous() as mentioned in a comment if you change limits = c(0:5) to limits = c(0, 5) :

ggplot(data = iris, aes(x = Sepal.Length, y = Sepal.Width, color = Sepal.Length)) +
    geom_count() +
    labs(title = "Iris dataset",
         x = "Sepal Length",
         y = "Sepal Width") +
    scale_y_continuous(limits = c(0, 5))

But, still, my preference would by ylim() since you're not doing anything else to the scale.