world_map: World country polygons

In orbis: Interactive and High-Resolution Layered Graphics with Built-in World Maps

World country polygons

Description

A simplified set of world country outlines, suitable for thematic world maps at typical figure sizes. Polygon rings were simplified with the Douglas-Peucker algorithm to keep the dataset small while preserving the recognisable shape of coastlines and borders.

Usage

world_map

Format

A data frame with four columns:

long

Longitude in degrees, from -180 to 180.

lat

Latitude in degrees, from -90 to 90.

group

Integer identifying the polygon ring a point belongs to. Points must be drawn ring by ring; a country made of several land masses has several rings.

region

Country or territory name.

Details

Coordinates are unprojected longitude and latitude in degrees; use orb_coord_map() to choose a projection.

Source

Derived from the world database of the maps package, whose boundaries come from Natural Earth (https://www.naturalearthdata.com), released into the public domain.

References

Douglas, D. H. & Peucker, T. K. (1973) "Algorithms for the reduction of the number of points required to represent a digitized line or its caricature." Cartographica 10, 112-122. \Sexpr[results=rd]{tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.3138/FM57-6770-U75U-7727")}

Examples

str(world_map)
length(unique(world_map$region))
orb_worldmap()

orbis documentation built on Aug. 5, 2026, 9:08 a.m.