Add number of observations per group in ggplot2 boxplot

Question

Following this question: How to add a number of observations per group and use group mean in ggplot2 boxplot?, I want to add number of observations per group in ggplot boxplot too. But I have added a colour into aes mapping.

The existing answer shows how to adjust text position in y axis. How could I adjust the text position in the x axis?

This is a minimum example to reproduce my problem:

library(ggplot2)

give.n <- function(x){
  return(c(y = median(x)*1.05, label = length(x))) 
  # experiment with the multiplier to find the perfect position
}


p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(vs), mpg, colour = factor(am))) + 
    geom_boxplot() +
    stat_summary(fun.data = give.n, geom = "text", fun.y = median)
p

Thanks for any suggestions.

Answer 1

You can just use position:

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(vs), mpg, colour = factor(am))) +  
     geom_boxplot() +
     stat_summary(fun.data = give.n, geom = "text", fun.y = median,
                  position = position_dodge(width = 0.75))
p

The width argument of position_dodge() controls the positioning on the horizontal axis. 0.75 is the sweet spot, see how it works for different numbers of groupings:

p2 <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(vs), mpg, colour = factor(cyl))) + 
      geom_boxplot() +
      stat_summary(fun.data = give.n, geom = "text", fun.y = median, 
                   position = position_dodge(width = 0.75))
p2

Answer 2

Instead of stat_summary, you can use geom_text. Please refer to the following question: ggplot2 add text on top of boxplots.

This is an example of how you may do it with the number of observations:

# Create an aggregate of median & count
> cts <- merge(aggregate(mpg ~ cyl + am, mtcars, length), 
               aggregate(mpg ~ cyl + am, mtcars, median), 
               by=c("cyl", "am"))
# Rename the col names to fit with the original dataset..
> names(cts) <- c("cyl", "am", "count", "mpg")
# As alexwhan suggested, position_dodge helps with positioning
# along the x-axis..
> ggplot(mtcars, aes(factor(cyl), mpg, colour = factor(am))) + 
  geom_boxplot(position = position_dodge(width=1.0)) + 
  geom_text(data = cts, aes(label=count), 
            position=position_dodge(width=1.0))