Plotting on maps using ggmaps
Abhay Padda
14 August 2017
Introduction
The objective is to explore ‘ggmap’ package in R and use this package to plot points on the map. For this post, I’ll be using the map of India. Initially, I’ll try to explain some of the basic functions in ggmap and then I’ll explain by plotting different airports in India. Let’s start..
Load the libraries
library(ggmap)## Warning: package 'ggmap' was built under R version 3.3.3## Loading required package: ggplot2## I am also loading ggplot2 with ggmap as ggmap() returns a ggplot object and we can use this object to apply all of the ggplot functions
library(ggplot2)Get map of India and plot it
get_map is a smart wrapper that queries the Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Stamen Maps or Naver Map servers for a map. In this post, I’ve used google as the default source.
map <- get_map(location = 'India', zoom = 4)## Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=India&zoom=4&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=terrain&language=en-EN&sensor=false## Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=India&sensor=falseUnderstanding Basic Map Types available in get_map map_type option
## Basic Map type
ggmap(map)
## I've used zoom value 10 for subsequent charts to make it easier to understand the difference in the output
## Roadmap
roadmap <- get_map("India", maptype='roadmap', zoom = 10)## Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=India&zoom=10&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=roadmap&language=en-EN&sensor=false## Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=India&sensor=falseggmap(roadmap)
## Hybrid
hybird <- get_map("India", maptype='hybrid', zoom = 10)## Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=India&zoom=10&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=hybrid&language=en-EN&sensor=false
## Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=India&sensor=falseggmap(hybird)
## Satellite
satellite <- get_map("India", maptype='satellite', zoom = 10)## Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=India&zoom=10&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=satellite&language=en-EN&sensor=false
## Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=India&sensor=falseggmap(satellite)
## Terrain
terrain <- get_map("India", maptype='terrain', zoom = 10)## Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=India&zoom=10&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=terrain&language=en-EN&sensor=false
## Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=India&sensor=falseggmap(terrain)
Using latitude and Longitude data to plot points on the map
Load the data file. The dataset is available here: https://data.humdata.org/dataset/ourairports-ind
airports <- read.csv("C://Users//Abhay//Desktop//in-airports.csv", header=T)
## Listing out first few rows
head(airports)## id ident type name
## 1 26555 VIDP large_airport Indira Gandhi International Airport
## 2 26434 VABB large_airport Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport
## 3 35145 VOBL large_airport Kempegowda International Airport
## 4 26618 VOMM large_airport Chennai International Airport
## 5 26444 VAGO large_airport Dabolim Airport
## 6 26609 VOCI large_airport Cochin International Airport
## latitude_deg longitude_deg elevation_ft continent iso_country iso_region
## 1 28.56650 77.1031 777 AS IN IN-DL
## 2 19.08870 72.8679 39 AS IN IN-MM
## 3 13.19790 77.7063 3000 AS IN IN-KA
## 4 12.99001 80.1693 52 AS IN IN-TN
## 5 15.38080 73.8314 150 AS IN IN-GA
## 6 10.15200 76.4019 30 AS IN IN-KL
## municipality scheduled_service gps_code iata_code local_code
## 1 New Delhi 1 VIDP DEL
## 2 Mumbai 1 VABB BOM
## 3 Bangalore 1 VOBL BLR
## 4 Chennai 1 VOMM MAA
## 5 Vasco da Gama 1 VOGO GOI
## 6 Cochin 1 VOCI COK
## home_link
## 1 http://www.newdelhiairport.in/
## 2 http://www.csia.in/
## 3 http://www.bengaluruairport.com/home/home.jspx
## 4
## 5
## 6 http://www.cochin-airport.com/
## wikipedia_link
## 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indira_Gandhi_International_Airport
## 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatrapati_Shivaji_International_Airport
## 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempegowda_International_Airport
## 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai_International_Airport
## 5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabolim_Airport
## 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochin_International_Airport
## keywords
## 1 Palam Air Force Station
## 2 Bombay, Sahar International Airport
## 3
## 4
## 5 Goa Airport, Dabolim Navy Airbase, à ¤¦à ¤¾à ¤¬à ¥<U+008B>à ¤³à ¥<U+0080> à ¤µà ¤¿à ¤®à ¤¾à ¤¨à ¤¤à ¤³
## 6 Cochin
## score last_updated
## 1 51475 2017-06-06T21:37:26+00:00
## 2 1014475 2013-04-12T01:27:48+00:00
## 3 51200 2016-02-01T17:54:36+00:00
## 4 51150 2008-12-07T02:26:07+00:00
## 5 875 2013-04-27T02:00:28+00:00
## 6 1000 2011-09-02T04:51:36+00:00## I'll be using latitude_deg and longitude_deg columns to plot the points on the map
## geom_point() is a ggplot2 function and it plots the points on the top of the map
points <- ggmap(map) + geom_point(aes(x = longitude_deg, y = latitude_deg), data = airports, alpha = .5)
points
Varying the size of the points depending upon the elevation of the airport
variablePoints <- ggmap(map) + geom_point(aes(x = longitude_deg, y = latitude_deg, size = elevation_ft), data = airports, alpha = .5)
## Modify the legend name
updatedMap <- variablePoints + scale_size_area(name = "Elevation Level (in feet)")
updatedMap
qmplot()
Another way to quickly plot a map is by using qmplot(). It automatically downloads the map based on values passed and plot the points on the map.
qmplot(longitude_deg, latitude_deg, data=airports)## Using zoom = 5...## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/21/12.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/22/12.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/23/12.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/24/12.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/21/13.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/22/13.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/23/13.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/24/13.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/21/14.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/22/14.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/23/14.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/24/14.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/21/15.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/22/15.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/23/15.png## Map from URL : http://tile.stamen.com/toner-lite/5/24/15.png## Warning: `panel.margin` is deprecated. Please use `panel.spacing` property
## instead
We can further use gplot2 functions on the object returned by ggmap() to modify the points to suit our requirements.