Database description
shapeR aims to simplify GIS mapping by giving access through simple R functions to shapefiles from different sources.
The list of available shapefiles is shown in the following table:
| Region | Source |
|---|---|
| World | https://www.naturalearthdata.com/ |
| Countries | https://gadm.org/download_world.html |
Functions
shapeR provides the R user with a consistent process to collect shapefiles. It provides access to the shapefiles for the entire world, all countries and their sub-divisions.
This tutorial presents how to use the shapeR R package and its functions.
- shaper_country()
- shaper_data()
Some examples are provided below.
shaper_country()
#Loading the statCanR library
library(shapeR)
# The ISO code for Canada will be produced
shaper_country(country = "Canada")
shaper_data()
First, the shaper_data() function takes as an input the country we’re interested in. We specify this argument with the country ISO code obtained from the function shaper_country(), as such: “CAN” for Canada, “USA” for United States, “FRA” for France or “ITA” for Italy.
The second argument is dedicated for the shapefile’s level (0 to 5). The level of a shapefile defines its degree of granularity: 0 being the borders of the country and 5 being its administrative areas.
For example, we can now extract the shapefile for Canada with the level 1 (regions).
# Get data with sqs_statcan_data function
mydata <- shaper_data(country_code = "CAN", level = 1)
head(mydata)
tl;dr
#Loading the statCanR library
library(shapeR)
# The ISO code for Canada will be produced
shaper_country(country = "Canada")
# Get data with sqs_statcan_data function
mydata <- shaper_data(country_code = "CAN", level = 1)
Code learned this week
| Command | Detail |
|---|---|
| shaper_country() | Search for a country’s ISO code |
| shaper_data() | Retrieve a shapefile for a country’s level |
References
This tutorial uses the shapeR package documentation developped by the team of the professor Thierry Warin.