How to increase geom_waffle plot's size?

Question

I am trying to make a waffle plot using geom_waffle() in R. Here is my code so far;

library(tidyverse)
library(waffle)
library(ggthemes)

haunted_places <- readr::read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rfordatascience/tidytuesday/master/data/2023/2023-10-10/haunted_places.csv')
haunted_places_top_5 <- haunted_places %>% 
  mutate(last_word = stringr::str_extract(location, "\\S+$"),
         last_word = str_to_title(last_word),
         last_word = case_when(last_word == "Rd." ~ "Road",
                               last_word == "Rd" ~ "Road",
                               last_word == "Streets" ~ "Street",
                               last_word == "Street)" ~ "Street", 
                               last_word == "St." ~ "Street", 
                               .default = as.character(last_word))) %>%
  group_by(last_word) %>%
  mutate(count = n(),
         percentage = count/10992,
         total_count = 10992) %>%
  select(last_word, count, total_count, percentage) %>%
  distinct() %>%
  arrange(desc(count))

haunted_places_top_5 <- haunted_places_top_5[1:5, ] 

ggplot(haunted_places_top_5, aes(fill = last_word, values = count)) +
  geom_waffle(color = "white", size = 0.25, na.rm = TRUE, nrows = 10) +
  facet_wrap(~last_word, nrow = 2) +
  theme_fivethirtyeight() +
  theme(panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
        axis.text.x = element_blank(),
        axis.text.y = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "none") +
  coord_fixed(ratio = 1)

And, this code returns the following plot;

My problem with this visualization is mainly due to small size of the tiles. Is there way or a trick that can help to customize the size of facetted panels so that they can be seen better by the audience? Thank you for your kind attention beforehand.

Answer 1

A feasible approach involves scaling down the count values by dividing them by 10. This adjustment effectively reduces the count values, resulting in each tile of the waffle plot representing 10 units, rather than just one. Subsequently, this change can be clearly annotated on the plot for clarity.

plot <- ggplot(haunted_places_top_5, aes(fill = last_word, values = count/10)) +  # Scale down the count
  geom_waffle(color = "white", size = 0.25, na.rm = TRUE, nrows = 5) +
  facet_wrap(~last_word, nrow = 2) +
  theme_fivethirtyeight() +
  theme(panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
        axis.text.x = element_blank(),
        axis.text.y = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "none") +
  coord_fixed(ratio = 1) +
  annotate("text", x = Inf, y = Inf, label = "Each tile represents 10 units", 
           hjust = 1.1, vjust = 1.1, size = 3, color = "black")  # Add annotation
plot

Answer 2

A second option, if you choose not to divide by 10, is to just adjust both the rows and size command.

ggplot(haunted_places_top_5, aes(fill = last_word, values = count)) +
  geom_waffle(color = "white", size = 0.0001, na.rm = TRUE, nrows = 10) +  # Adjusted size here
  facet_wrap(~last_word, nrow = 5) +
  theme_fivethirtyeight() +
  theme(panel.grid.major.x = element_blank(),
        panel.grid.major.y = element_blank(),
        axis.text.x = element_blank(),
        axis.text.y = element_blank(),
        legend.position = "none") +
  coord_fixed(ratio = 1)

Interestingly, the smaller you go with the size, the larger the points get.