read_ipums_sf: Read spatial data from an IPUMS extract

In ipumsr: An R Interface for Downloading, Reading, and Handling IPUMS Data

Read spatial data from an IPUMS extract

Description

Read a spatial data file (also referred to as a GIS file or shapefile) from an IPUMS extract into an sf object from the sf package.

Usage

read_ipums_sf(
  shape_file,
  file_select = NULL,
  vars = NULL,
  encoding = NULL,
  bind_multiple = FALSE,
  add_layer_var = NULL,
  verbose = FALSE,
  shape_layer = deprecated()
)

Arguments

shape_file	Path to a single .shp file or a .zip archive containing at least one .shp file. See Details section.
file_select	If shape_file is a .zip archive that contains multiple files, an expression identifying the files to load. Accepts a character string specifying the file name, a tidyselect selection, or index position. If multiple files are selected, bind_multiple must be equal to TRUE.
vars	Names of variables to include in the output. Accepts a character vector of names or a tidyselect selection. If NULL, includes all variables in the file.
encoding	Encoding to use when reading the shape file. If NULL, defaults to "latin1" unless the file includes a .cpg metadata file with encoding information. The default value should generally be appropriate.
bind_multiple	If TRUE and shape_file contains multiple .shp files, row-bind the files into a single sf object. Useful when shape_file contains multiple files that represent the same geographic units for different extents (e.g. block-level data for multiple states).
add_layer_var	If TRUE, add a variable to the output data indicating the file that each row originates from. Defaults to FALSE unless bind_multiple = TRUE and multiple files exist in shape_file. The column name will always be prefixed with "layer", but will be adjusted to avoid name conflicts if another column named "layer" already exists in the data.
verbose	If TRUE report additional progress information on load.
shape_layer	Please use file_select instead.

Details

Some IPUMS products provide shapefiles in a "nested" .zip archive. That is, each shapefile (including a .shp as well as accompanying files) is compressed in its own archive, and the collection of all shapefiles provided in an extract is also compressed into a single .zip archive.

read_ipums_sf() is designed to handle this structure. However, if any files are altered such that an internal .zip archive contains multiple shapefiles, this function will throw an error. If this is the case, you may need to manually unzip the downloaded file before loading it into R.

Value

An sf object

See Also

read_ipums_micro() or read_nhgis() to read tabular data from an IPUMS extract.

ipums_list_files() to list files in an IPUMS extract.

Examples

# Example shapefile from NHGIS
shape_ex1 <- ipums_example("nhgis0972_shape_small.zip")
data_ex1 <- read_nhgis(ipums_example("nhgis0972_csv.zip"), verbose = FALSE)

sf_data <- read_ipums_sf(shape_ex1)

sf_data

# To combine spatial data with tabular data without losing the attributes
# included in the tabular data, use an ipums shape join:
ipums_shape_full_join(data_ex1, sf_data, by = "GISJOIN")

shape_ex2 <- ipums_example("nhgis0712_shape_small.zip")

# Shapefiles are provided in .zip archives that may contain multiple
# files. Select a single file with `file_select`:
read_ipums_sf(shape_ex2, file_select = matches("us_pmsa_1990"))

# Or row-bind files with `bind_multiple`. This may be useful for files of
# the same geographic level that cover different extents)
read_ipums_sf(
  shape_ex2,
  file_select = matches("us_pmsa"),
  bind_multiple = TRUE
)

ipumsr documentation built on Oct. 20, 2023, 5:10 p.m.