bcmaps
is an R
package of spatial map layers for British Columbia.
bcmaps
provides access to various spatial layers of
British Columbia, such as administrative boundaries, natural resource
management boundaries, watercourses, census boundaries, etc. All layers
are available as sf
objects in the BC Albers
projection, which is the B.C. Government standard.
Most layers are accessed directly from the B.C. Data Catalogue using the bcdata R package under the hood. See each layer’s individual help file for more detail.
IMPORTANT NOTE Support for Spatial objects (
sp
) was removed in {bcmaps} v1.3.0. Please usesf
objects with {bcmaps}. A discussion on the evolution of the spatial software stack in R can be found here: https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html.
To see the layers that are available, run the
available_layers()
function:
Most layers are accessible by a shortcut function by the same name as
the object. Then you can use the data as you would any sf
object. The first time you try to access a layer, you will be prompted
for permission to download that layer to your hard drive. Subsequently
that layer is available locally for easy future access. For example:
There are two British Columbia boundary map layers available in
bcmaps
:
bc_bound()
for fast plotting with suitable detail for
most figures (source: (7.5M)
Provinces and States - The Atlas of Canada Base Maps for BC)bc_bound_hres()
for geospatial analyses requiring
detailed lineworks of British Columbia (source: Province
of British Columbia - Boundary Terrestrial)By default, all layers are returned as sf
spatial
objects:
library(bcmaps)
library(sf)
# Load and plot the boundaries of B.C.
bc <- bc_bound()
plot(st_geometry(bc))
## Next load the Regional Districts data, then extract and plot the Kootenays
rd <- regional_districts()
kootenays <- rd[rd$ADMIN_AREA_NAME == "Regional District of Central Kootenay", ]
plot(st_geometry(kootenays), col = "lightseagreen", add = TRUE)
The cded_raster
and cded_stars
functions
return the 1:250,000 digital elevation model for British Columbia
bounded by some area of interest. Here we are retrieving the area
bounded by the Logan Lake census subdivision:
A handy layer for creating maps for display is the
bc_neighbours
layer, accessible with the function by the
same name. This example also illustrates using the popular ggplot2 package to plot maps
in R using geom_sf
and the bc_cities()
function available in bcmaps
: