I load the gapminder and kableExtra libraries, and before I create the table, I begin filtering and arranging the data based on the year and continents of interest. Since the table contains the least populous countries by continent, I use slice_tail to select the least populated countries for the continents Americas and Europe in 1997.
To replicate the table, I also need to make sure that I order the data frame in the same way. It appears that the countries are listed by those with the highest life expectancy first, so I arrange my data frame accordingly.
Some variable names in the data set are abbreviated (e.g., pop for population), so I rename those using the group_by function. I also use pivot_longer and pivot_wider to move the population and life expectancy columns to rows and country names to columns.
The data is ready to be plugged into kable and use some kableExtra features to add some specific details. I first make sure to set the decimal places to zero in kable to round my data appropriately. Using kableExtra functionality, I add stripes, change the position (left-aligned), and add headers to include the continents. Finally, I italicize the text in the statistic column and add a footnote with styling that matches the original table.
library(tidyverse)
library(gapminder)
library(kableExtra)
options(knitr.table.format = "html")
least_pop_countries_1997 <- gapminder %>% drop_na() %>% filter(year == 1997 & continent %in% c("Americas", "Europe")) %>% group_by(continent) %>% select(continent, country, pop, lifeExp) %>% arrange(desc(pop)) %>% slice_tail(n = 2)
least_pop_countries2 <- least_pop_countries_1997 %>% group_by(continent, country, pop) %>% select(continent, country, pop, lifeExp) %>% arrange(lifeExp, .by_group = TRUE)
least_pop_stat <- least_pop_countries2 %>% group_by(country, "population" = pop, "life expectancy" = lifeExp) %>% select() %>% pivot_longer(cols = c('population', 'life expectancy'), names_to = "statistic") %>% pivot_wider(names_from = country) %>% ungroup()
least_pop_stat %>%
kable(digits = 0) %>%
kable_styling("striped", full_width = F, position = "left") %>% add_header_above(c(" " = 1, "Americas" = 2, "Europe" = 2)) %>% column_spec(1, italic = T) %>% footnote(general = "Population and life expectancy for the two least populous countries in Americas and Europe in 1997.", footnote_as_chunk = T, title_format = c("italic", "underline"))| statistic | Jamaica | Trinidad and Tobago | Iceland | Montenegro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| population | 2531311 | 1138101 | 271192 | 692651 |
| life expectancy | 72 | 69 | 79 | 75 |
| Note: Population and life expectancy for the two least populous countries in Americas and Europe in 1997. |