Using the sp package to plot geographic data

The sp package has the necessary features to store and plot geographic data. In this recipe, we will use the sp package to plot imported shape files.

Getting ready

Install the packages rgdal and sp. If you have issues installing the rgdal package on Mac or Linux, refer to the earlier recipe for details.

Copy the following files to your R working directory:

  • ne_50m_admin_0_countries.shp
  • ne_50m_admin_0_countries.prj
  • ne_50m_admin_0_countries.shx
  • ne_50m_admin_0_countries.VERSION.txt
  • ne_50m_airports.shp
  • ne_50m_airports.prj
  • ne_50m_airports.shx
  • ne_50m_airports.VERSION.txt

We obtained these files from http://www.naturalearthdata.com/.

How to do it...

To plot geographic data using the sp package, follow these steps:

  1. Load the ...

Get R: Recipes for Analysis, Visualization and Machine Learning now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial