Error in ggplot(): Mapping should be created with `aes()`

Last updated on August 17, 2022

In this post we will see an example of one of most common errors while making a plot with ggplot2 and how to fix them.

library(tidyverse)
theme_set(theme_bw(16)

Let us we are trying to make a scatter plot using ggplot2 using the following code. Here we use mtcars dataset built-in R to make the scatter plot

mtcars %>%
  ggplot(mpg,disp)+
  geom_point()

If we try to execute the code we will get the following error.

Error in `ggplot()`:
! Mapping should be created with `aes()` or `aes_()`.

How to fix: ggplot2 error: Mapping should be created with `aes() or aes_()`

The error here is definitely is useful in coming up with ways to fix the error. The error message indirectly saying the we are missing aes() while specifying x and y-axis variables for the scatter plot.

By correctly adding aes() as shown below

mtcars %>%
  ggplot(aes(mpg,disp))+
  geom_point()+
  labs(subtitle= "How to fix: ggplot2 error: Mapping should be created with `aes()`")
ggsave("how_to_fix_ggplot2_error_Mapping_should_be_created_with_aes.png")

We will get the intended scatter plot shown below.