In the examples section of ?cutree (stats package): hc <- hclust(dist(USArrests)) cutree(hc, k=1:5)#k = 1 is trivial cutree(hc, h=250) ## Compare the 2 and 3 grouping: <<= SHOULD READ AS: "2 and 4 grouping" g24 <- cutree(hc, k = c(2,4)) table(g24[,"2"], g24[,"4"])