Retrieve global composite data (CGAZ) from geoBoundaries

Attribution is required for all uses of this dataset.

This function returns a global composite for the requested administrative level, clipped to international boundaries, with gaps filled between adjacent borders.

Usage

gb_get_world(
  country = "all",
  adm_lvl = "adm0",
  quiet = TRUE,
  overwrite = FALSE,
  path = NULL
)

Source

geoBoundaries API Service https://www.geoboundaries.org/api.html.

Arguments

country: Character vector of country identifiers. This can be "all" (to return data for all countries), a vector of country names, or ISO3 country codes. See also countrycode::countrycode().
adm_lvl: Type of boundary. Accepted values are administrative levels 0, 1, and 2. "adm0" corresponds to national boundaries, "adm1" to first‑level subnational boundaries, and "adm2" to second‑level boundaries. Uppercase variants (e.g., "ADM1") and numeric values (0, 1, 2) are also accepted.
quiet: logical. If TRUE, suppress informational messages.
overwrite: logical. If TRUE, force a fresh download of the source .zip file, even if it is already cached.
path: Character. Path to a cache directory. If NULL (the default), data are stored in the default cache directory (see gb_set_cache()). If no cache directory has been configured, files are stored in a temporary directory (see base::tempdir()).

Value

An sf object containing the requested boundaries.

Details

Comprehensive Global Administrative Zones (CGAZ) is a set of global composite administrative boundary products. There are two key differences between these global composites and individual country downloads:

Boundaries undergo extensive simplification to ensure file sizes remain manageable for typical desktop software.
Disputed areas are removed and replaced with polygons defined according to U.S. Department of State guidelines.

References

Runfola, D. et al. (2020) geoBoundaries: A global database of political administrative boundaries. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231866. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0231866 .

Examples


# This download may take some time
# \dontrun{
world <- gb_get_world()

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(world) +
  geom_sf() +
  coord_sf(expand = FALSE) +
  labs(caption = "Source: www.geoboundaries.org")

# }