# Boxplot interpretation: is it correct that a boxplot is missing a whisker?

I have a data set that has customerID and daily visits. This dataset records the number of times customers visited the site in a day.

customerID   TotalVisits
1            6
2            17
3            20
4            25


Just to explore the data further, I tried plotting the TotalVisits values in a box plot. The plot doesn't seem to have a lower whisker. q1=1 and there are no values between q1 and q1-1.5(IQR). The plot has q1, q2 and q3. The minimum value and q1 are the same.

Is this why the boxplot doesn't have the lower whisker? Could you please help me with the interpretation? Is it correct to draw a boxplot without any whiskers?

[I am new to the site and I am not able to post the image.]

• @Nick I think the question may be motivated by the expectation that the unique (and almost outlying) minimum of four values should not equal the first quartile. By Tukey's definition of the boxplot, 6 total visits would be at the very bottom of an obvious lower whisker. This seems to be how R does it, too, as can be seen with boxplot(x <- c(6, 17, 20, 25)); stripchart(x, v=TRUE, add=TRUE, col="Red").
– whuber
Aug 22, 2013 at 14:26
• SS_11, have you shown us all the data or not? For why this is important, please see the preceding comment by @Nick Cox.
– whuber
Aug 22, 2013 at 14:29
• I am sorry..The dataset that I have shown here is just an example of how my table looks. There are more than a million rows of data and the box plot that R created out of the entire data set has no lower whisker. Aug 22, 2013 at 14:50