rnaturalearth R Package

All retrieval functions in rnaturalearth accept a returnclass argument. This allows you to specify the spatial object format returned:

• returnclass = "sf": Returns sf (Simple Features) objects.
• returnclass = "sv": Returns sv (SpatVector) objects.

For a detailed guide on using the package, run the following command in your R session:

vignette("rnaturalearth", package = "rnaturalearth")

For information regarding country definitions and scales, use:

vignette("what-is-a-country", package = "rnaturalearth")

You can install the stable version of rnaturalearth from CRAN. To install the development version, use pak.

Note that much of the package's functionality depends on two additional data packages: rnaturalearthdata and rnaturalearthhires. It is recommended to install these manually to ensure all features work correctly.

# Install from CRAN
install.packages("rnaturalearth")

# Install development version from GitHub
pak::pkg_install("ropensci/rnaturalearth")

# Install required data packages
pak::pkg_install("ropensci/rnaturalearthdata")
pak::pkg_install("ropensci/rnaturalearthhires")

Use ne_states() to retrieve administrative level 1 boundaries (e.g., states or provinces) for a specific country.

library(rnaturalearth)

# Plot states for Spain
plot(ne_states(country = "spain"))

Use ne_countries() to retrieve vector data for world countries. You can subset the data by providing a specific country name.

By default, the returned object can be plotted using base R plot(), but it is also compatible with ggplot2 and tmap if you specify the correct return class.

library(rnaturalearth)

# Plot all world countries
plot(ne_countries())

# Plot a specific country (e.g., United Kingdom)
plot(ne_countries(country = "united kingdom"))

If the data you need is not included in the package, use ne_download() to fetch it directly from Natural Earth. You must specify the scale, type, and category (either "physical" or "cultural").

Example of downloading lakes and rivers:

library(rnaturalearth)
library(ggplot2)
library(sf)

# Download lakes at 1:110 scale
lakes110 <- ne_download(scale = 110, type = "lakes", category = "physical")
plot(lakes110)

# Download rivers at 1:50 scale as an sf object
rivers50 <- ne_download(
  scale = 50,
  type = "rivers_lake_centerlines",
  category = "physical",
  returnclass = "sf"
)

# Plot using ggplot2
ggplot(rivers50) +
  geom_sf() +
  theme_minimal()