Handling Spatial Projections & CRS

Last updated on 2025-02-18 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • What do I do when vector data do not line up?

Objectives

After completing this episode, participants should be able to…

  • Plot vector objects with different CRSs in the same plot.

Working with spatial data from different sources

In this episode, we will work with a different dataset containing Dutch municipal boundaries. We start by reading the data and plotting it.

R 

municipal_boundary_NL <- st_read("data/nl-gemeenten.shp")

OUTPUT 

Reading layer `nl-gemeenten' from data source
  `/home/runner/work/r-geospatial-urban/r-geospatial-urban/site/built/data/nl-gemeenten.shp'
  using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
Simple feature collection with 344 features and 6 fields
Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 10425.16 ymin: 306846.2 xmax: 278026.1 ymax: 621876.3
Projected CRS: Amersfoort / RD New

R 

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = municipal_boundary_NL) +
  labs(title = "Map of Contiguous NL Municipal Boundaries") +
  coord_sf(datum = st_crs(28992))

We can add a country boundary layer to make it look nicer. If we specify a thicker line width using size = 2 for the country boundary layer, it will make our map pop! We read the country boundary from a different file.

R 

country_boundary_NL <- st_read("data/nl-boundary.shp")

OUTPUT 

Reading layer `nl-boundary' from data source
  `/home/runner/work/r-geospatial-urban/r-geospatial-urban/site/built/data/nl-boundary.shp'
  using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
Simple feature collection with 1 feature and 1 field
Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 10425.16 ymin: 306846.2 xmax: 278026.1 ymax: 621876.3
Projected CRS: Amersfoort / RD New

R 

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = country_boundary_NL, 
          color = "gray18", 
          linewidth = 2) +
  geom_sf(data = municipal_boundary_NL, 
          color = "gray40") +
  labs(title = "Map of Contiguous NL Municipal Boundaries") +
  coord_sf(datum = st_crs(28992))

We confirm that the CRS of both boundaries is 28992.

R 

st_crs(municipal_boundary_NL)$epsg

OUTPUT 

[1] 28992

R 

st_crs(country_boundary_NL)$epsg

OUTPUT 

[1] 28992

We read the municipal boundary of Delft and make sure that it is in the same CRS as the country-level municipal boundaries and country boundary layers.

R 

boundary_Delft <- st_read("data/delft-boundary.shp")

OUTPUT 

Reading layer `delft-boundary' from data source
  `/home/runner/work/r-geospatial-urban/r-geospatial-urban/site/built/data/delft-boundary.shp'
  using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
Simple feature collection with 1 feature and 1 field
Geometry type: POLYGON
Dimension:     XY
Bounding box:  xmin: 4.320218 ymin: 51.96632 xmax: 4.407911 ymax: 52.0326
Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84

R 

st_crs(boundary_Delft)$epsg

OUTPUT 

[1] 4326

R 

boundary_Delft <- st_transform(boundary_Delft, 28992)

R 

ggplot() +
  geom_sf(data = country_boundary_NL, 
          linewidth = 2, 
          color = "gray18") +
  geom_sf(data = municipal_boundary_NL, 
          color = "gray40") +
  geom_sf(data = boundary_Delft, 
          color = "purple", 
          fill = "purple") +
  labs(title = "Map of Contiguous NL Municipal Boundaries") +
  coord_sf(datum = st_crs(28992))

Challenge: Plot multiple layers of spatial data

Create a map of South Holland as follows:

  1. Import nl-gemeenten.shp and filter only the municipalities in South Holland.
  2. Plot it and adjust line width as necessary.
  3. Layer the boundary of Delft onto the plot.
  4. Add a title.
  5. Add a legend that shows both the municipal boundaries (as a line) and the boundary of Delft (as a filled polygon).

R 

boundary_ZH <- municipal_boundary_NL %>% 
  filter(ligtInPr_1 == "Zuid-Holland")

R 

ggplot() +
    geom_sf(data = boundary_ZH, 
            aes(color ="color"), 
            show.legend = "line") +
    scale_color_manual(name = "", 
                       labels = "Municipal Boundaries in South Holland", 
                       values = c("color" = "gray18")) +
    geom_sf(data = boundary_Delft, 
            aes(shape = "shape"), 
            color = "purple", 
            fill = "purple") +
    scale_shape_manual(name = "", 
                       labels = "Municipality of Delft", 
                       values = c("shape" = 19)
                       ) +
    labs(title = "Delft location") +
    theme(legend.background = element_rect(color = NA)) +
    coord_sf(datum = st_crs(28992))

Projecting layers

Note that ggplot2 may reproject the layers on the fly for visualisation purposes, but for geoprocessing purposes, you still need to reproject the layers explicitly with st_transform(). This will become clear in a later episode when we perform GIS operations.

Export a shapefile

To save a file, use the st_write() function from the sf package. Although sf guesses the driver needed for a specified output file name from its extension, this can be made explicitly via the driver argument. In our case driver = "ESRI Shapefile" ensures that the output is correctly saved as a .shp file.

R 

st_write(leisure_locations_selection,
  "data/leisure_locations_selection.shp",
  driver = "ESRI Shapefile"
)

Key Points

  • ggplot2 automatically converts all objects in a plot to the same CRS.
  • For geoprocessing purposes, you still need to reproject the layers you use to the same CRS.
  • You can export an sf object to a shapefile with st_write().