geobounds: Accessing Global Administrative Boundary Data in R

Introduction

The geobounds package provides a straightforward interface for downloading and working with global political and administrative boundary data from the geoBoundaries project (Runfola et al. 2020).

These datasets are openly licensed (CC BY 4.0) and cover countries worldwide across multiple administrative levels. The package supports different geoBoundaries release types: gbOpen, gbHumanitarian, and gbAuthoritative, which vary in validation levels and licensing. With geobounds, you can easily fetch boundary geometries as sf objects, explore metadata, cache datasets locally, and seamlessly integrate the boundaries into your spatial workflows.

Understanding the data

The geoBoundaries database undergoes a rigorous quality assurance process, including manual review and hand-digitization of physical maps where necessary. Its primary goal is to provide the highest possible level of spatial accuracy for scientific and academic applications.

This precision comes at a cost: some files can be quite large and may take longer to download. For visualization or general mapping purposes, we recommend using the simplified datasets available by setting simplified = TRUE.

library(geobounds)
library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)

# Different resolutions
norway <- gb_get_adm0("NOR") |>
  mutate(res = "Full resolution")
print(object.size(norway), units = "Mb")
#> 26.5 Mb

norway_simp <- gb_get_adm0(country = "NOR", simplified = TRUE) |>
  mutate(res = "Simplified")
print(object.size(norway_simp), units = "Mb")
#> 1.5 Mb

norway_all <- bind_rows(norway, norway_simp)

# Plot ggplot2
ggplot(norway_all) +
  geom_sf(fill = "#BA0C2F", color = "#00205B") +
  facet_wrap(vars(res)) +
  theme_minimal() +
  labs(caption = "Source: www.geoboundaries.org")

Comparison between full vs. simplified map.

Individual country files

The geoBoundaries API provides individual country files, whose aim is to represent every nation “as they would represent themselves”, with no special identification of disputed areas.

The download of this data is implemented in gb_get() and the ?gb_get_adm family of functions. It is not guaranteed that borders align perfectly or that there are no gaps between countries. Additionally, these files do not include a special identification of disputed areas.

india_pak <- gb_get_adm0(c("India", "Pakistan"))

# Disputed area: Kashmir
ggplot(india_pak) +
  geom_sf(aes(fill = shapeName), alpha = 0.5) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("#FF671F", "#00401A")) +
  labs(
    fill = "Country",
    title = "Map of India & Pakistan",
    subtitle = "Note overlapping in Kashmir region",
    caption = "Source: www.geoboundaries.org"
  )

Map showing overlapping in disputed area: Kashmir.

Note that individual data files are governed by the license or licenses identified within the metadata for each respective boundary.

gb_get_metadata(c("India", "Pakistan"), adm_lvl = "ADM0") |>
  select(boundaryName, boundaryLicense, boundarySource)
#> # A tibble: 2 × 3
#>   boundaryName boundaryLicense                                      boundarySource                
#>   <chr>        <chr>                                                <chr>                         
#> 1 India        CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication geoBoundaries, Wikimedia Comm…
#> 2 Pakistan     Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0          OpenStreetMap, Wambacher

Composite files

If you would prefer data where disputed areas are explicitly handled (by removing overlaps and filling gaps), please use gb_get_world(). This function downloads global composite datasets for administrative boundaries, also known as CGAZ (Comprehensive Global Administrative Zones). There are three important distinctions between CGAZ and individual country downloads:

Extensive simplification is performed to ensure that file sizes are small enough to be used in most traditional desktop software.
Disputed areas are removed and replaced with polygons following US Department of State definitions.
Gaps between borders have been filled.

cgaz_india_pak <- gb_get_world(c("India", "Pakistan"))

ggplot(cgaz_india_pak) +
  geom_sf(aes(fill = shapeName), alpha = 0.5) +
  scale_fill_manual(values = c("#FF671F", "#00401A")) +
  labs(
    fill = "Country",
    title = "Map of India & Pakistan",
    subtitle = "CGAZ does not overlap",
    caption = "Source: www.geoboundaries.org"
  )

Map showing no overlapping in Kashmir, provided by CGAZ.

Caching and performance

The package provides a built-in mechanism to cache files locally so that repeated downloads for the same country/level will use the cached version. For example:

# Current folder
current <- gb_detect_cache_dir()
#> ℹ 'C:\Users\diego\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp6BaCrq'

current
#> [1] "C:\\Users\\diego\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\Rtmp6BaCrq"

# Change to new
newdir <- file.path(tempdir(), "/geoboundvignette")
gb_set_cache_dir(newdir)
#> ✔ geobounds cache dir is 'C:\Users\diego\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp6BaCrq//geoboundvignette'.
#> ℹ To install your `cache_dir` path for use in future sessions run this function with `install = TRUE`.

# Download
example <- gb_get_adm0("Vatican City", quiet = FALSE)
#> ℹ Downloading file from <https://github.com/wmgeolab/geoBoundaries/raw/9469f09/releaseData/gbOpen/VAT/ADM0/geoBoundaries-VAT-ADM0-all.zip>
#> → Cache dir is 'C:\Users\diego\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp6BaCrq//geoboundvignette/gbOpen'

# Restore cache dir
gb_set_cache_dir(current)
#> ✔ geobounds cache dir is 'C:\Users\diego\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp6BaCrq'.
#> ℹ To install your `cache_dir` path for use in future sessions run this function with `install = TRUE`.

current == gb_detect_cache_dir()
#> ℹ 'C:\Users\diego\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp6BaCrq'
#> [1] TRUE

To clear the cache, use gb_clear_cache().

Specific cache directories for each function call can be set using the cache_dir argument of each function.

Use in spatial analysis pipelines

Because the boundaries are returned as sf objects, you can easily use them in combination with other spatial data:

Clip raster data to administrative units
Compute zonal statistics
Create choropleth maps
Perform spatial joins with survey or tabular data

In this example we would create a choropleth map using the meta data of the individual files and the boundaries data of CGAZ:

# Metadata

latam_meta <- gb_get_metadata(adm_lvl = "ADM0") |>
  select(boundaryISO, boundaryName, Continent, worldBankIncomeGroup) |>
  filter(Continent == "Latin America and the Caribbean") |>
  glimpse()
#> Rows: 47
#> Columns: 4
#> $ boundaryISO          <chr> "ABW", "AIA", "ARG", "ATG", "BES", "BHS", "BLM", "BLZ", "BOL", "BRA…
#> $ boundaryName         <chr> "Aruba", "Anguilla", "Argentina", "Antigua and Barbuda", "Bonaire S…
#> $ Continent            <chr> "Latin America and the Caribbean", "Latin America and the Caribbean…
#> $ worldBankIncomeGroup <chr> "High-income Countries", "No income group available", "High-income …

# Adjust factors
latam_meta$income_factor <- factor(latam_meta$worldBankIncomeGroup,
  levels = c(
    "High-income Countries",
    "Upper-middle-income Countries",
    "Lower-middle-income Countries",
    "Low-income Countries"
  )
)

# Get the shapes from CGAZ
latam_sf <- gb_get_world(adm_lvl = "ADM0") |>
  inner_join(latam_meta,
    by =
      c("shapeGroup" = "boundaryISO")
  )

ggplot(latam_sf) +
  geom_sf(aes(fill = income_factor)) +
  scale_fill_brewer(palette = "Greens", direction = -1) +
  guides(fill = guide_legend(position = "bottom", nrow = 2)) +
  coord_sf(
    crs = "+proj=laea +lon_0=-75 +lat_0=-15"
  ) +
  labs(
    title = "World Bank Income Group",
    subtitle = "Latin America and the Caribbean",
    fill = "",
    caption = "Source: www.geoboundaries.org"
  )

World Bank Income Group: Latin America and the Caribbean

Summary

The geobounds package makes it easy to fetch, manage and visualize administrative boundary data worldwide in a reproducible and efficient way. Whether you’re doing mapping, spatial analysis, survey integration, or geospatial modelling, it gives you a high-quality boundary dataset with minimal overhead.

References

Runfola, Daniel, Austin Anderson, Heather Baier, Matt Crittenden, Elizabeth Dowker, Sydney Fuhrig, Seth Goodman, et al. 2020. “geoBoundaries: A Global Database of Political Administrative Boundaries.” PLOS ONE 15 (4): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231866.