ne_download: download data from Natural Earth and (optionally) read into R

Description

returns downloaded data as a spatial object or the filename if load=FALSE. if destdir is specified the data can be reloaded in a later R session using ne_load with the same arguments.

Usage

ne_download(
  scale = 110,
  type = "countries",
  category = c("cultural", "physical", "raster"),
  destdir = tempdir(),
  load = TRUE,
  returnclass = c("sp", "sf")
)

Value

A Spatial object depending on the data (points, lines, polygons or raster), unless load=FALSE in which case it returns the name of the downloaded shapefile (without extension).

Arguments

scale: scale of map to return, one of 110, 50, 10 or 'small', 'medium', 'large'
type: type of natural earth file to download one of 'countries', 'map_units', 'map_subunits', 'sovereignty', 'states' OR the portion of any natural earth vector url after the scale and before the . e.g. for 'ne_50m_urban_areas.zip' this would be 'urban_areas'. See Details. OR the raster filename e.g. for 'MSR_50M.zip' this would be 'MSR_50M'
category: one of natural earth categories : 'cultural', 'physical', 'raster'
destdir: where to save files, defaults to tempdir(), getwd() is also possible.
load: TRUE/FALSE whether to load file into R and return
returnclass: 'sp' default or 'sf' for Simple Features

Details

A non-exhaustive list of datasets available according to scale specified by the type param

	scale = 'small'	scale = 'medium'	scale = 'large'
category = 'physical', type = '[below]'	coastline	y	y
y	land	y	y
y	ocean	y	y
y	rivers_lake_centerlines	y	y
y	lakes	y	y
y	glaciated_areas	y	y
y	antarctic_ice_shelves_polys	-	y
y	geographic_lines	y	y
y	graticules_1	y	y
y	graticules_30	y	y
y	wgs84_bounding_box	y	y
y	playas	-	y
y	minor_islands	-	-
y	reefs	-	-
y	category = 'cultural', type = '[below]'	populated_places	y
y	y	boundary_lines_land	y
y	y	breakaway_disputed_areas	-
y	y	airports	-
y	y	ports	-
y	y	urban_areas	-
y	y	roads	-
-	y	railroads	-

Examples

Run this code

if (FALSE) {
spdf_world <- ne_download(scale = 110, type = "countries")

if (require(sp)) {
  plot(spdf_world)
  plot(ne_download(type = "populated_places"))
}

# reloading from the saved file in the same session with same arguments

spdf_world2 <- ne_load(scale = 110, type = "countries")

# download followed by load from specified directory will work across sessions
spdf_world <- ne_download(scale = 110, type = "countries", destdir = getwd())
spdf_world2 <- ne_load(scale = 110, type = "countries", destdir = getwd())

# for raster, here an example with Manual Shaded Relief (MSR) download & load

rst <- ne_download(scale = 50, type = "MSR_50M", category = "raster", destdir = getwd())

# load after having downloaded
rst <- ne_load(
  scale = 50, type = "MSR_50M", category = "raster", destdir =
    getwd()
)

# plot
library(terra)
terra::plot(rst)
# end dontrun
}