README.md

Digital Vector Boundaries related to UK Geographies

Last update: 01-11-2021

Overview

This R package provides a coherent hierrachy of boundaries about most geographical areas in the UK. All boundaries, apart from WPZ-Workplace Zone, are built on top of the minimal OA Output Area object (or SA Small Area as they are called in N.Ireland). This means that some of the maps that you draw upon them are only a geographical approximation of the corresponding developed by the ONS (notice though that not all the boundaries found in the package are developed or shared by the ONS).

Installation

The package is not on CRAN (it can't be due to its size).

You can instead install this package from github as:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github('lvalnegri/dmpkg.bnduk')

Notice that because of the mass of information contained the package file is actually quite big (>250Mb), and it'll take a while for download and installation.

Content

The files included in this R package are now all of class sf, simplified at 20% (rmapshaper::ms_simplify), with the CRS transformed to WGS84, World Geodetic System 1984 (epsg:4326) for easier web interactive mapping using the leaflet package as basis.

All boundaries, but OA and WPZ, are obtained either as the dissolution (rmapshaper::ms_dissolve) or as a point in polygon (sf::st_join with sf::st_within) operation of the union (sf::st_union) of the original national OA boundaries (detailed below), in the former case using the OA lookups table built in the dmpkg.geouk package. This implies that these boundaries, while adequate for statistical purposes, do not precisely comply with ONS geographical specifications.

Besides the geography component, all objects contain only the ONS codes.

They are related to, and assume the name of, the following UK Geographies, split up by categories (for more details, see the locations_types table built in the dmpkg.geouk package).

CENSUS / ADMIN

POSTCODES

ELECTORAL

URBAN

SOCIAL

HEALTH

Initial Boundaries

OA Output Areas

WPZ Workplace Zones

Attributions



lvalnegri/dmpkg.bnduk documentation built on Nov. 15, 2022, 4:45 a.m.