fviz_dend: Enhanced Visualization of Dendrogram

In factoextra: Extract and Visualize the Results of Multivariate Data Analyses

Enhanced Visualization of Dendrogram

Description

Draws easily beautiful dendrograms using either R base plot or ggplot2. It also provides options for circular dendrograms and phylogenetic-style trees.

Read more: Visualizing Dendrograms in R: Color, Zoom & Customize; to compare two trees see Comparing Dendrograms in R: Tanglegrams & Correlation.

Usage

fviz_dend(
  x,
  k = NULL,
  h = NULL,
  k_colors = NULL,
  palette = NULL,
  show_labels = TRUE,
  color_labels_by_k = TRUE,
  match_coord_colors = FALSE,
  label_cols = NULL,
  labels_font = "plain",
  labels_track_height = NULL,
  repel = FALSE,
  lwd = 0.7,
  highlight = NULL,
  highlight.col = "red",
  highlight.lwd = NULL,
  type = c("rectangle", "circular", "phylogenic"),
  phylo_layout = "layout.auto",
  rect = FALSE,
  rect_border = "gray",
  rect_lty = 2,
  rect_fill = FALSE,
  lower_rect,
  horiz = FALSE,
  cex = 0.8,
  main = "Cluster Dendrogram",
  xlab = "",
  ylab = "Height",
  sub = NULL,
  ggtheme = theme_classic(),
  ...
)

Arguments

x	an object of class dendrogram, hclust, agnes, diana, hcut, hkmeans or HCPC (FactoMineR).
k	the number of groups for cutting the tree.
h	a numeric value. Cut the dendrogram by cutting at height h. (k overrides h)
k_colors, palette	a vector containing colors to be used for the groups. It should contain k colors. Allowed values also include "grey" for grey color palettes; brewer palettes e.g. "RdBu", "Blues", ...; and scientific journal palettes from ggsci R package, e.g.: "npg", "aaas", "lancet", "jco", "ucscgb", "uchicago", "simpsons" and "rickandmorty".
show_labels	a logical value. If TRUE, leaf labels are shown. Default value is TRUE.
color_labels_by_k	logical value. If TRUE, labels are colored automatically by group when k != NULL.
match_coord_colors	logical value. Default is FALSE, where dendrogram colors follow the left-to-right leaf order. If TRUE, cluster colors are remapped to cluster-label order so they match fviz_cluster() and fviz_silhouette() for the same clustering.
label_cols	a vector containing the colors for labels.
labels_font	font face for the leaf labels of "rectangle"/"circular" dendrograms. One of "plain" (default), "bold", "italic" or "bold.italic". Default "plain" leaves labels unchanged.
labels_track_height	a positive numeric value for adjusting the room for the labels. Used only when type = "rectangle".
repel	logical value. Use repel = TRUE to avoid label overplotting when type = "phylogenic". The literal "phylogenic" value is a historical API token retained for compatibility.
lwd	a numeric value specifying dendrogram branch and rectangle line width.
highlight	an optional character vector of leaf labels; the branches leading to those leaves are emphasized (thicker, and coloured highlight.col) while every other branch keeps its colour and width. NULL (default) highlights nothing. Has no effect for type = "phylogenic" (that layout does not colour branch segments).
highlight.col	colour (name or hex) for the highlighted branches.
highlight.lwd	line width for the highlighted branches. NULL (default) uses 2 * lwd so the emphasis stands out by thickness regardless of colour; set highlight.lwd = lwd for colour-only emphasis.
type	type of plot. Allowed values are "rectangle", "circular", and the historical compatibility token "phylogenic" for a phylogenetic-style tree.
phylo_layout	the layout used for phylogenetic-style trees. Default value is "layout.auto", which is kept as a compatibility alias for "layout_nicely". Allowed values include: layout.auto, layout_nicely, layout_with_drl, layout_as_tree, layout.gem, layout_with_gem, layout.mds, layout_with_mds and layout_with_lgl.
rect	logical value specifying whether to add a rectangle around groups. Used only when k != NULL.
rect_border, rect_lty	border color and line type for rectangles.
rect_fill	a logical value. If TRUE, fill the rectangle.
lower_rect	a value of how low should the lower part of the rectangle around clusters. Ignored when rect = FALSE.
horiz	a logical value. If TRUE, a horizontal dendrogram is drawn.
cex	size of labels
main, xlab, ylab	main and axis titles
sub	Plot subtitle. Default is NULL (no subtitle). Set to a character string to display a subtitle below the title, e.g. sub = paste0("Method: ", "ward.D2").
ggtheme	function, ggplot2 theme name. Default value is theme_classic(). Allowed values include ggplot2 official themes: theme_gray(), theme_bw(), theme_minimal(), theme_classic(), theme_void(), ....
...	other arguments to be passed to the function plot.dendrogram()

Details

For branch styling beyond highlight - for example dashed branches or per-branch colours - pre-style a dendextend dendrogram and pass it to fviz_dend(), which honours its set() aesthetics:

  library(dendextend)
  dend <- as.dendrogram(hclust(dist(scale(USArrests))))
  dend <- set(dend, "branches_lty", 2)   # dashed branches
  fviz_dend(dend)
  

Comparing two dendrograms. To compare two hierarchical clusterings of the same observations (e.g. different linkages), draw a tanglegram with dendextend (already a dependency): the two trees face each other, matched leaves are connected, and entanglement() measures agreement (0 = perfect, 1 = worst). This uses base graphics.

  library(dendextend)
  d1 <- as.dendrogram(hclust(dist(scale(USArrests)), "complete"))
  d2 <- as.dendrogram(hclust(dist(scale(USArrests)), "average"))
  dl <- dendlist(d1, d2)
  dl <- untangle(dl, method = "step2side")        # reduce crossings
  tanglegram(dl, common_subtrees_color_branches = TRUE)
  entanglement(dl)                                 # agreement, in [0, 1]
  

Both dendrograms must share the same leaf labels.

Value

an object of class fviz_dend which is a ggplot with the attributes "dendrogram" accessible using attr(x, "dendrogram"), where x is the result of fviz_dend().

See Also

tanglegram, entanglement for comparing two dendrograms (see Details). Online tutorials: Visualizing Dendrograms in R: Color, Zoom & Customize and Comparing Dendrograms in R: Tanglegrams & Correlation.

Examples

# Load and scale the data
data(USArrests)
df <- scale(USArrests)

# Hierarchical clustering
res.hc <- hclust(dist(df))

# Default plot
fviz_dend(res.hc)

# Increase branch and rectangle line widths
fviz_dend(res.hc, lwd = 2)

# Cut the tree
fviz_dend(res.hc, cex = 0.5, k = 4, color_labels_by_k = TRUE)

# Don't color labels, add rectangles
fviz_dend(res.hc, cex = 0.5, k = 4, 
 color_labels_by_k = FALSE, rect = TRUE)
 
# Change the color of tree using black color for all groups
# Change rectangle border colors
fviz_dend(res.hc, rect = TRUE, k_colors ="black",
rect_border = 2:5, rect_lty = 1)

# Customized color for groups
fviz_dend(res.hc, k = 4, 
 k_colors = c("#1B9E77", "#D95F02", "#7570B3", "#E7298A"))
 
 
 # Color labels using k-means clusters
 km.clust <- kmeans(df, 4)$cluster
 fviz_dend(res.hc, k = 4, 
   k_colors = c("blue", "green3", "red", "black"),
   label_cols =  km.clust[res.hc$order], cex = 0.6)

 # Phylogenetic-style tree layouts support both compatibility aliases and
 # current igraph layout names
 if (requireNamespace("igraph", quietly = TRUE)) {
   fviz_dend(res.hc, type = "phylogenic", phylo_layout = "layout_nicely",
             show_labels = FALSE)
 }

factoextra documentation built on July 24, 2026, 9:06 a.m.