Download individual country boundaries from geoBoundaries

Returns individual country boundaries that reflect how countries represent their own boundaries, without special identification of disputed areas.

Use gb_get_world() for global composite boundaries that standardize disputed areas and fill gaps between borders.

Boundaries downloaded through this function are not covered by the package's MIT license. Attribution to geoBoundaries and the original sources is required when sharing the boundaries or derived products.

Usage

gb_get(
  country,
  adm_lvl = "adm0",
  simplified = FALSE,
  release_type = c("gbOpen", "gbHumanitarian", "gbAuthoritative"),
  quiet = TRUE,
  overwrite = FALSE,
  cache_dir = NULL
)

Source

geoBoundaries API.

Arguments

country: A character vector of country names or ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country codes. Use "all" to return boundaries for all countries. See also countrycode::countrycode() from countrycode.
adm_lvl: ADM level. Accepted values are "all" (all available boundaries) or the ADM level ("adm0" is the country boundary, "adm1" is the first level of subnational boundaries, "adm2" is the second level and so on). Uppercase versions ("ADM1") and level numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) are also accepted.
simplified: A logical value. If TRUE, return simplified boundaries. The default FALSE uses the primary geoBoundaries layer. See simplified boundaries at https://www.geoboundaries.org/.
release_type: A character string, one of "gbOpen", "gbHumanitarian" or "gbAuthoritative". For most users, use "gbOpen" (the default), which contains openly licensed boundaries suitable for most purposes when their individual license terms are followed. "gbHumanitarian" boundaries are mirrored from UN OCHA and may have additional conditions. "gbAuthoritative" boundaries are mirrored from UN SALB, verified through in-country processes and cannot be used for commercial purposes.
quiet: A logical value. If TRUE, suppress informational messages.
overwrite: A logical value. If TRUE, force a fresh download of the source .zip archive.
cache_dir: A path to a cache directory. If not set (the default NULL), boundary archives are stored in the default cache directory (see gb_set_cache_dir()). If no cache directory has been set, archives are stored in a temporary cache directory. See base::tempdir() and the cache strategies in gb_set_cache_dir().

Value

An sf object from sf containing the requested boundaries. If no boundaries match the request, the function returns NULL.

Details

Each individual country boundary layer is governed by the original license identified in its boundary metadata. See gb_get_metadata(). The "gbOpen" release contains multiple open licenses, including ODbL and CC BY-SA. Do not assume every boundary is licensed only under CC BY 4.0. Users should cite the sources listed in the metadata and comply with any attribution, share-alike or non-commercial terms.

The wrappers gb_get_adm0(), gb_get_adm1(), gb_get_adm2(), gb_get_adm3(), gb_get_adm4() and gb_get_adm5() are also available for requesting a single ADM level.

References

Runfola et al. (2020) "geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries." PLOS ONE, 15(4), 1–9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0231866 .

Examples

# \donttest{
# Map ADM2 in Sri Lanka.
sri_lanka <- gb_get(
  "Sri Lanka",
  adm_lvl = 2,
  simplified = TRUE
)

sri_lanka
#> Simple feature collection with 25 features and 5 fields
#> Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
#> Dimension:     XY
#> Bounding box:  xmin: 79.65102 ymin: 5.919017 xmax: 81.87896 ymax: 9.835791
#> Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
#> # A tibble: 25 × 6
#>    shapeName     shapeISO shapeID shapeGroup shapeType                  geometry
#>  * <chr>         <chr>    <chr>   <chr>      <chr>            <MULTIPOLYGON [°]>
#>  1 Jaffna Distr… LK-41    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((79.7152 9.529465, 79.…
#>  2 Kilinochchi … LK-42    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.01015 9.472403, 80…
#>  3 Mannar Distr… LK-43    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.11535 9.209068, 80…
#>  4 Mullaitivu D… LK-45    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.61353 9.456581, 80…
#>  5 Vavuniya Dis… LK-44    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.23541 8.680412, 80…
#>  6 Galle Distri… LK-31    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((79.98757 6.440352, 79…
#>  7 Hambantota D… LK-33    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.67006 6.306029, 80…
#>  8 Matara Distr… LK-32    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.3818 5.965264, 80.…
#>  9 Ampara Distr… LK-52    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((81.70788 6.51073, 81.…
#> 10 Anuradhapura… LK-71    463711… LKA        ADM2      (((80.03237 8.527211, 80…
#> # ℹ 15 more rows

library(ggplot2)
ggplot(sri_lanka) +
  geom_sf() +
  labs(
    caption = paste(
      "Sources: geoBoundaries, OpenStreetMap and Wambacher,",
      "license: ODbL 1.0"
    )
  )

# }

# Inspect boundary metadata.
library(dplyr)
#> 
#> Attaching package: ‘dplyr’
#> The following objects are masked from ‘package:stats’:
#> 
#>     filter, lag
#> The following objects are masked from ‘package:base’:
#> 
#>     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
gb_get_metadata(
  "Sri Lanka",
  adm_lvl = 2
) |>
  # Check the individual license.
  select(boundaryISO, boundaryType, licenseDetail, licenseSource) |>
  glimpse()
#> Rows: 1
#> Columns: 4
#> $ boundaryISO   <chr> "LKA"
#> $ boundaryType  <chr> "ADM2"
#> $ licenseDetail <chr> "Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0"
#> $ licenseSource <chr> "www.openstreetmap.org/copyright"