sankeyplot: Sankey / Alluvial Plot

In plotthis: High-Level Plotting Built Upon 'ggplot2' and Other Plotting Packages

Sankey / Alluvial Plot

Description

Draws Sankey (alluvial) diagrams to visualise flow, movement, or change from one categorical state to another across discrete positions (time points, stages, or groups). The plot consists of nodes (vertical blocks, or strata) representing categories at each position, and links (alluvia / flows) representing the observation units that move between categories across positions.

The function accepts data in several formats, controlled by in_form:

"lodes" / "long"

Each row is an observation at one x-position, with columns for x, stratum, alluvium, and optionally y.

"alluvia" / "wide"

Each row is an observation unit tracked across all positions; x columns represent the categories at each position. Converted internally via to_lodes_form().

"counts"

Numeric columns under each x represent frequencies. When the first element of x is ".", the links_fill_by values are injected as an additional first column of nodes, visualising the source distribution of flows.

"auto" (default)

Automatically detects the format: numeric multi-column x → "counts"; multi-column x passing is_alluvia_form → "alluvia"; otherwise → "lodes".

Supports split_by to produce separate sub-plots for different subsets of the data, facet_by for within-plot faceting, and independent styling of nodes and links (colours, alpha, borders, labels, and legend behaviour).

AlluvialPlot is an alias of SankeyPlot.

Usage

SankeyPlot(
  data,
  in_form = c("auto", "long", "lodes", "wide", "alluvia", "counts"),
  x,
  x_sep = "_",
  y = NULL,
  stratum = NULL,
  stratum_sep = "_",
  alluvium = NULL,
  alluvium_sep = "_",
  split_by = NULL,
  split_by_sep = "_",
  keep_empty = TRUE,
  flow = FALSE,
  expand = c(0, 0, 0, 0),
  nodes_legend = c("auto", "separate", "merge", "none"),
  nodes_color = "grey30",
  links_fill_by = NULL,
  links_fill_by_sep = "_",
  links_name = NULL,
  links_color = "gray80",
  nodes_palette = "Paired",
  nodes_palcolor = NULL,
  nodes_alpha = 1,
  nodes_label = FALSE,
  nodes_label_miny = 0,
  nodes_width = 0.25,
  links_palette = "Paired",
  links_palcolor = NULL,
  palreverse = FALSE,
  links_alpha = 0.6,
  legend.box = "vertical",
  x_text_angle = 0,
  aspect.ratio = 1,
  legend.position = "right",
  legend.direction = "vertical",
  flip = FALSE,
  theme = "theme_this",
  theme_args = list(),
  title = NULL,
  subtitle = NULL,
  xlab = NULL,
  ylab = NULL,
  facet_by = NULL,
  facet_scales = "fixed",
  facet_ncol = NULL,
  facet_nrow = NULL,
  facet_byrow = TRUE,
  seed = 8525,
  combine = TRUE,
  nrow = NULL,
  ncol = NULL,
  byrow = TRUE,
  axes = NULL,
  axis_titles = axes,
  guides = NULL,
  design = NULL,
  ...
)

AlluvialPlot(
  data,
  in_form = c("auto", "long", "lodes", "wide", "alluvia", "counts"),
  x,
  x_sep = "_",
  y = NULL,
  stratum = NULL,
  stratum_sep = "_",
  alluvium = NULL,
  alluvium_sep = "_",
  split_by = NULL,
  split_by_sep = "_",
  keep_empty = TRUE,
  flow = FALSE,
  expand = c(0, 0, 0, 0),
  nodes_legend = c("auto", "separate", "merge", "none"),
  nodes_color = "grey30",
  links_fill_by = NULL,
  links_fill_by_sep = "_",
  links_name = NULL,
  links_color = "gray80",
  nodes_palette = "Paired",
  nodes_palcolor = NULL,
  nodes_alpha = 1,
  nodes_label = FALSE,
  nodes_label_miny = 0,
  nodes_width = 0.25,
  links_palette = "Paired",
  links_palcolor = NULL,
  palreverse = FALSE,
  links_alpha = 0.6,
  legend.box = "vertical",
  x_text_angle = 0,
  aspect.ratio = 1,
  legend.position = "right",
  legend.direction = "vertical",
  flip = FALSE,
  theme = "theme_this",
  theme_args = list(),
  title = NULL,
  subtitle = NULL,
  xlab = NULL,
  ylab = NULL,
  facet_by = NULL,
  facet_scales = "fixed",
  facet_ncol = NULL,
  facet_nrow = NULL,
  facet_byrow = TRUE,
  seed = 8525,
  combine = TRUE,
  nrow = NULL,
  ncol = NULL,
  byrow = TRUE,
  axes = NULL,
  axis_titles = axes,
  guides = NULL,
  design = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

data	A data frame.
in_form	A character string specifying the input data format. One of "auto" (default), "long", "lodes", "wide", "alluvia", or "counts". "long" is an alias for "lodes"; "wide" is an alias for "alluvia". See the data parameter of SankeyPlot for format descriptions.
x	A character string specifying the column name of the data frame to plot for the x-axis.
x_sep	A character string to join multiple x columns when in_form is "lodes" or auto-determined as lodes. Default "_".
y	A character string specifying the column name of the data frame to plot for the y-axis.
stratum	A character string specifying the column that defines the node categories at each x-axis position. Each unique value becomes a stratum (node block) at each x position. When NULL, defaults to links_fill_by. Multiple columns are concatenated with stratum_sep. Ignored in "alluvia" format.
stratum_sep	A character string to join multiple stratum columns. Default "_".
alluvium	A character string specifying the column that identifies individual flows (alluvia) across x-axis positions. Each unique value represents a single observational unit tracked across positions. When NULL in "counts" format, an auto-generated identifier is created. Multiple columns are concatenated with alluvium_sep. Ignored in "alluvia" format.
alluvium_sep	A character string to join multiple alluvium columns. Default "_".
split_by	The column(s) to split data by and plot separately.
split_by_sep	The separator for multiple split_by columns. See split_by
keep_empty	One of FALSE, TRUE and "level". It can also take a named list to specify different behavior for different columns. Without a named list, the behavior applies to the categorical/character columns used on the plot, for example, the x, group_by, fill_by, etc. FALSE (default): Drop empty factor levels from the data before plotting. TRUE: Keep empty factor levels and show them as a separate category in the plot. "level": Keep empty factor levels, but do not show them in the plot. But they will be assigned colors from the palette to maintain consistency across multiple plots. Alias: levels
flow	A logical value. When FALSE (default), geom_alluvium() is used for the links. When TRUE, geom_flow() is used instead, which draws the flows with a directional gradient between x positions.
expand	The values to expand the x and y axes. It is like CSS padding. When a single value is provided, it is used for both axes on both sides. When two values are provided, the first value is used for the top/bottom side and the second value is used for the left/right side. When three values are provided, the first value is used for the top side, the second value is used for the left/right side, and the third value is used for the bottom side. When four values are provided, the values are used for the top, right, bottom, and left sides, respectively. You can also use a named vector to specify the values for each side. When the axis is discrete, the values will be applied as 'add' to the 'expansion' function. When the axis is continuous, the values will be applied as 'mult' to the 'expansion' function. See also https://ggplot2.tidyverse.org/reference/expansion.html
nodes_legend	Controls how the node legend is displayed. One of: "auto" (default) Automatically determined: if nodes_label = TRUE, or if stratum is identical to links_fill_by with matching colours, the legend is hidden. Otherwise, overlapping stratum values across x positions are checked: any overlap produces a merged legend; no overlap produces separate legends per x position. "merge" A single merged legend for all nodes. "separate" One legend per x-axis position, generated via separate scale_fill_manual() layers. "none" No node legend is shown.
nodes_color	A character string specifying the border colour of the node (stratum) rectangles. Use the special value ".fill" to match the border colour to the node fill colour. Default "grey30".
links_fill_by	A character string specifying the column that determines the fill colour of the links (alluvia / flows). When NULL in "lodes" format, defaults to alluvium. In "counts" format with the "." prefix, this parameter is required. Multiple columns are concatenated with links_fill_by_sep.
links_fill_by_sep	A character string to join multiple links_fill_by columns. Default "_".
links_name	A character string for the legend title of the link fill scale. When NULL (default), the links_fill_by column name is used.
links_color	A character string specifying the border colour of the links (alluvia / flows). Use the special value ".fill" to match the link border colour to the link fill colour. Default "gray80".
nodes_palette	A character string specifying the colour palette for the node (stratum) fill. Passed to palette_this(). Default "Paired".
nodes_palcolor	A character vector of custom colours for the node fill, used as palcolor in palette_this(). When NULL (default), the palette colours are used directly.
nodes_alpha	A numeric value in [0, 1] controlling the transparency of the node (stratum) fill. Default 1.
nodes_label	A logical value. When TRUE, stratum labels are drawn inside each node using geom_label() with StatStratum. Default FALSE.
nodes_label_miny	A numeric value specifying the minimum y (frequency) threshold for displaying node labels. Nodes with y-values below this threshold are not labelled. Default 0.
nodes_width	A numeric value (typically 0–1) specifying the width of the node (stratum) rectangles as a fraction of the x-axis spacing. Default 0.25.
links_palette	A character string specifying the colour palette for the link fill. Passed to palette_this(). Default "Paired".
links_palcolor	A character vector of custom colours for the link fill, used as palcolor in palette_this(). When NULL (default), the palette colours are used directly.
palreverse	A logical value indicating whether to reverse the palette. Default is FALSE.
links_alpha	A numeric value in [0, 1] controlling the transparency of the link fill. Default 0.6.
legend.box	A character string specifying the arrangement of legend boxes, either "vertical" (default) or "horizontal".
x_text_angle	A numeric value specifying the angle of the x-axis text.
aspect.ratio	A numeric value specifying the aspect ratio of the plot.
legend.position	A character string specifying the position of the legend. if waiver(), for single groups, the legend will be "none", otherwise "right".
legend.direction	A character string specifying the direction of the legend.
flip	A logical value. When TRUE, coord_flip() is applied to swap the x and y axes. Default FALSE.
theme	A character string or a theme class (i.e. ggplot2::theme_classic) specifying the theme to use. Default is "theme_this".
theme_args	A list of arguments to pass to the theme function.
title	A character string specifying the title of the plot. A function can be used to generate the title based on the default title. This is useful when split_by is used and the title needs to be dynamic.
subtitle	A character string specifying the subtitle of the plot.
xlab	A character string specifying the x-axis label.
ylab	A character string specifying the y-axis label.
facet_by	A character string specifying the column name of the data frame to facet the plot. Otherwise, the data will be split by split_by and generate multiple plots and combine them into one using patchwork::wrap_plots
facet_scales	Whether to scale the axes of facets. Default is "fixed" Other options are "free", "free_x", "free_y". See ggplot2::facet_wrap
facet_ncol	A numeric value specifying the number of columns in the facet. When facet_by is a single column and facet_wrap is used.
facet_nrow	A numeric value specifying the number of rows in the facet. When facet_by is a single column and facet_wrap is used.
facet_byrow	A logical value indicating whether to fill the plots by row. Default is TRUE.
seed	The random seed to use. Default is 8525.
combine	Whether to combine the plots into one when facet is FALSE. Default is TRUE.
nrow	A numeric value specifying the number of rows in the facet.
ncol	A numeric value specifying the number of columns in the facet.
byrow	A logical value indicating whether to fill the plots by row.
axes	A string specifying how axes should be treated. Passed to patchwork::wrap_plots(). Only relevant when split_by is used and combine is TRUE. Options are: 'keep' will retain all axes in individual plots. 'collect' will remove duplicated axes when placed in the same run of rows or columns of the layout. 'collect_x' and 'collect_y' will remove duplicated x-axes in the columns or duplicated y-axes in the rows respectively.
axis_titles	A string specifying how axis titltes should be treated. Passed to patchwork::wrap_plots(). Only relevant when split_by is used and combine is TRUE. Options are: 'keep' will retain all axis titles in individual plots. 'collect' will remove duplicated titles in one direction and merge titles in the opposite direction. 'collect_x' and 'collect_y' control this for x-axis titles and y-axis titles respectively.
guides	A string specifying how guides should be treated in the layout. Passed to patchwork::wrap_plots(). Only relevant when split_by is used and combine is TRUE. Options are: 'collect' will collect guides below to the given nesting level, removing duplicates. 'keep' will stop collection at this level and let guides be placed alongside their plot. 'auto' will allow guides to be collected if a upper level tries, but place them alongside the plot if not.
design	Specification of the location of areas in the layout, passed to patchwork::wrap_plots(). Only relevant when split_by is used and combine is TRUE. When specified, nrow, ncol, and byrow are ignored. See patchwork::wrap_plots() for more details.
...	Additional arguments.

Value

A ggplot object (single panel, no split_by), a patchwork object (when combine = TRUE and split_by is used), or a named list of ggplot objects (when combine = FALSE). Each plot carries height and width attributes in inches.

split_by workflow

When split_by is provided:

1. The split_by column(s) are validated and coerced to factors via check_columns(). Multi-column split_by is concatenated with split_by_sep.

2. Empty factor levels are dropped from split_by.

3. The data is split by split_by level (preserving level order). If split_by is NULL, the data is wrapped in a single-element list with name "...".

4. SankeyPlotAtomic() is called for each split, with title resolved per level (supports function-valued titles).

5. Results are combined via combine_plots() (when combine = TRUE) or returned as a named list.

Examples

# Examples from ggalluvial datasets
set.seed(8525)

data(UCBAdmissions, package = "datasets")
UCBAdmissions <- as.data.frame(UCBAdmissions)
SankeyPlot(as.data.frame(UCBAdmissions), x = c("Gender", "Dept"),
    y = "Freq", nodes_width = 1/12, links_fill_by = "Admit", nodes_label = TRUE,
    nodes_palette = "simspec", links_palette = "Set1", links_alpha = 0.5,
    nodes_palcolor = "black", links_color = "transparent")

data(HairEyeColor, package = "datasets")
SankeyPlot(as.data.frame(HairEyeColor), x = c("Hair", "Eye", "Sex"),
    y = "Freq", links_fill_by = "Eye", nodes_width = 1/8, nodes_alpha = 0.4,
    flip = TRUE, reverse = FALSE, knot.pos = 0, links_color = "transparent",
    ylab = "Freq", links_alpha = 0.5, links_name = "Eye (links)", links_palcolor = c(
        Brown = "#70493D", Hazel = "#E2AC76", Green = "#3F752B", Blue = "#81B0E4"))

data(Refugees, package = "alluvial")
country_regions <- c(
    Afghanistan = "Middle East",
    Burundi = "Central Africa",
    `Congo DRC` = "Central Africa",
    Iraq = "Middle East",
    Myanmar = "Southeast Asia",
    Palestine = "Middle East",
    Somalia = "Horn of Africa",
    Sudan = "Central Africa",
    Syria = "Middle East",
    Vietnam = "Southeast Asia"
)
Refugees$region <- country_regions[Refugees$country]
SankeyPlot(Refugees, x = "year", y = "refugees", alluvium = "country",
    links_fill_by = "country", links_color = ".fill", links_alpha = 0.75,
    links_palette = "Set3", facet_by = "region", x_text_angle = -45, nodes_legend = "none",
    theme_args = list(strip.background = ggplot2::element_rect(fill="grey80")),
    decreasing = FALSE, nodes_width = 0, nodes_color = "transparent", ylab = "refugees",
    title = "Refugee volume by country and region of origin")

data(majors, package = "ggalluvial")
majors$curriculum <- as.factor(majors$curriculum)
SankeyPlot(majors, x = "semester", stratum = "curriculum", alluvium = "student",
    links_fill_by = "curriculum", flow = TRUE, stat = "alluvium", nodes_palette = "Set2",
    links_palette = "Set2")

data(vaccinations, package = "ggalluvial")
vaccinations <- transform(vaccinations,
    response = factor(response, rev(levels(response))))
SankeyPlot(vaccinations, x = "survey", stratum = "response", alluvium = "subject",
    y = "freq", links_fill_by = "response", nodes_label = TRUE, nodes_alpha = 0.5,
    nodes_palette = "seurat", links_palette = "seurat", links_alpha = 0.5,
    legend.position = "none", flow = TRUE, expand = c(0, 0, 0, .15), stat = "alluvium",
    title = "vaccination survey responses at three points in time")

data(Titanic, package = "datasets")
SankeyPlot(as.data.frame(Titanic), x = c("Class", "Sex"), y = "Freq",
    links_fill_by = "Survived", flow = TRUE, facet_by = "Age", facet_scales = "free_y",
    nodes_label = TRUE, expand = c(0.05, 0), xlab = "", links_palette = "Set1",
    nodes_palcolor = "white", nodes_label_miny = 10)

# Simulated examples
df <- data.frame(
    Clone = paste0("clone", 1:10),
    Timepoint1 = sample(c(rep(0, 30), 1:100), 10),
    Timepoint2 = sample(c(rep(0, 30), 1:100), 10)
)
SankeyPlot(df, x = c("Timepoint1", "Timepoint2"), alluvium = "Clone",
    links_color = ".fill")

df <- data.frame(
    Clone = rep(paste0("clone", 1:6), each = 2),
    Timepoint1 = sample(c(rep(0, 30), 1:100), 6),
    Timepoint2 = sample(c(rep(0, 30), 1:100), 6),
    Group = rep(c("A", "B"), 6)
)
SankeyPlot(df, x = c(".", "Timepoint1", "Timepoint2"),
    stratum = "Group", links_fill_by = "Clone", links_color = ".fill")

plotthis documentation built on July 9, 2026, 5:07 p.m.