Taken from Section 5 (Add-On Packages) of the R FAQ (general):

http://cran.r-project.org/faqs.html

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#R-Add_002dOn-Packages



5.1.1 Add-on packages in R



The R distribution comes with the following packages:



base

    Base R functions (and datasets before R 2.0.0).

compiler

    R byte code compiler (added in R 2.13.0).

datasets

    Base R datasets (added in R 2.0.0).

grDevices

    Graphics devices for base and grid graphics (added in R 2.0.0).

graphics

    R functions for base graphics.

grid

    A rewrite of the graphics layout capabilities, plus some support for interaction.

methods

    Formally defined methods and classes for R objects, plus other programming tools, as described in the Green Book.

parallel

    Support for parallel computation, including by forking and by sockets, and random-number generation (added in R 2.14.0).

splines

    Regression spline functions and classes.

stats

    R statistical functions.

stats4

    Statistical functions using S4 classes.

tcltk

    Interface and language bindings to Tcl/Tk GUI elements.

tools

    Tools for package development and administration.

utils

    R utility functions. 



These “base packages” were substantially reorganized in R 1.9.0. The former base was split into the four packages base, graphics, stats, and utils. Packages ctest, eda, modreg, mva, nls, stepfun and ts were merged into stats, package lqs returned to the recommended package MASS, and package mle moved to stats4. 



#### Apr. 9, 2013 for R 3.0.0 for Windows