Handling Spatial Data with R

Spatial data are becoming increasingly common, as are the tools available in R to process it. It takes a little time to understand how R handles spatial data; this tutorial is designed to help get people started. It outlines how to create a simple spatial points object from as csv file, load and export a shapefile and alter or add spatial projection information.

Data and Package Requirements:

London Sport Participation Shapefile. Download (requires unzipping).

London Cycle Hire Locations: Download.

Install the following packages (if you haven’t already done so):

maptools, rgdal (Mac users may wish to see here first).

Click here to view the tutorial code.