Linkage Method Explorer

Single, complete, average and Ward linkage on the same points — four dendrograms, four different stories.

hierarchical clustering
linkage
dendrogram
Ward

Ward linkage (K=3)

Single linkage (K=3)

Complete linkage (K=3)

Mean silhouette width by linkage

Orange = weak structure, green = strong structure thresholds at 0.25 / 0.50.

Cluster sizes

Method	Sizes	Min	Max	Max/Min ratio
Ward	20 / 47 / 73	20.000	73.000	3.6
Single	133 / 2 / 5	2.000	133.000	66.5
Complete	8 / 36 / 96	8.000	96.000	12.0

Linkage choice is a modeling assumption

Ward favors compact, balanced clusters by minimizing within-cluster variance at each merge. Single linkage chains through nearest neighbors and can produce one large cluster plus outliers. Complete and average sit between these extremes. Each method finds the structure it is designed to find, whether or not that structure exists in the data.

Preparing the simulation…