Performing cluster analysis using hierarchical clustering

Hierarchical clustering builds a hierarchy of clusters either through the agglomerative or divisive method.

Both these methods use a distance similarity measure to combine or split clusters. The recursive process continues until there is only one cluster left or you cannot split more clusters. Eventually, a dendrogram can be used to represent the hierarchy of clusters.

In this recipe, we will demonstrate how to cluster European protein consumption with hierarchical clustering.

Getting ready

If you have not already downloaded the files for this chapter, do so now and ensure that the protein.csv file is in your R working directory.

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