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rnaturalearthdata (development version)

rnaturalearthdata 1.0.0

CRAN release: 2024-02-09

Breaking changes

This release introduces breaking changes by discontinuing support for the sp object in favor of sf. Although the sp object is still available on CRAN, it is no longer being actively developed (https://geocompx.org/post/2023/rgdal-retirement/). This is the main reason that prompted the decision to transition to sf.

Here is the list of affected objects that are now returned as Spatial Feature (sf):

coastline110 world coastlines from Natural Earth
coastline50 world coastlines from Natural Earth
countries110 world country polygons from Natural Earth
countries50 world country polygons from Natural Earth
map_units110 world map_unit polygons from Natural Earth
map_units50 world map_unit polygons from Natural Earth
sovereignty110 world sovereignty polygons from Natural Earth
sovereignty50 world sovereignty polygons from Natural Earth
states50 state (admin level 1) polygons from Natural Earth
tiny_countries110 tiny countries points from Natural Earth
tiny_countries50 tiny countries points from Natural Earth

If changing the return type to sf causes too many issues with your existing code, you can still convert it back to sp.

# option 1
sf::as_Spatial(x)


# option 2
as(x, "Spatial")

More information about the retirement of rgdal, rgeos and maptools: https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html

rnaturalearthdata 0.2.1 2023-03-06

rnaturalearthdata 0.2.0

rnaturalearthdata 0.1.0 CRAN

CRAN release: 2017-02-21

  • Initial release