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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-04T02:06:47+00:00

Using base graphics in R, how can I add superscripts to axis labels, as

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Using base graphics in R, how can I add superscripts to axis labels, as one might want to when plotting latitude and longitude axes on a map.

Consider this example:

plot(-100:-50, 50:100, type="n", xlab="", ylab="", axes=FALSE)
axis(1, seq(-100, -50, 10), labels=paste(abs(seq(-100, -50, 10)), "o", "W", sep=""))
axis(2, seq(50, 100, 10), labels=paste(seq(50,100,10), "o", "N", sep=""))
box()

Produces a nice frame around a map. It would be even nicer to make the degree symbol superscript.

This can usually be done in other plotting functions such as mtext() and text() using expression(paste(...)) or substitute() but how to do it in this case?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It works the same way for axes: parse(text='70^o*N') will raise the o as a superscript (the *N is to make sure the N doesn’t get raised too).

    labelsX=parse(text=paste(abs(seq(-100, -50, 10)), "^o ", "*W", sep=""))
labelsY=parse(text=paste(seq(50,100,10), "^o ", "*N", sep=""))
plot(-100:-50, 50:100, type="n", xlab="", ylab="", axes=FALSE)
axis(1, seq(-100, -50, 10), labels=labelsX)
axis(2, seq(50, 100, 10), labels=labelsY)
box()
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