Beyond the choropleth

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“World data on a map” has many honest forms. A choropleth is only the first. The package offers a full vocabulary; this vignette tours the ones that run without extra dependencies and points to the rest.

Proportional-symbol (bubble) maps

For totals, a choropleth misleads: large values hide in small countries. Sized circles at centroids are the right idiom.

bubble_map(snap, population)

Equal-area tile grids

Give every country the same visual weight so micro-states are visible.

tile_map(snap, gdp_per_capita)

Flow maps

Great-circle arcs between country pairs from an origin–destination table.

od <- data.frame(
  from   = c("China", "Germany", "Brazil", "Nigeria"),
  to     = c("United States", "France", "Argentina", "India"),
  weight = c(500, 200, 90, 60)
)
flow_map(od, from, to, weight)

Labels

Centroid-anchored labels (names, ISO codes or flag emoji), with ggrepel collision avoidance when available.

mapdf <- attach_geometry(
  dplyr::filter(snap, continent == "Europe"), geometry = "polygon"
)
world_map(mapdf, gdp_per_capita) +
  geom_country_labels(repel = FALSE, size = 2.5) +
  ggplot2::coord_cartesian(xlim = c(-25, 45), ylim = c(34, 72))

Maps that need optional packages

The remaining displays follow the same one-call pattern but require optional packages, so they are shown here as code:

# Bivariate choropleth (two variables at once) — needs `biscale` + `sf`
world_data(2020, c(gdp = "NY.GDP.PCAP.KD", life = "SP.DYN.LE00.IN"),
           geometry = "sf") |>
  bivariate_map(gdp, life)

# Area-honest cartogram — needs `cartogram` + `sf`
world_data(2020, c(pop = "SP.POP.TOTL"), geometry = "sf") |>
  cartogram_map(pop, type = "dorling")

# Animated choropleth over a year panel — needs `gganimate`
world_data(2000:2020, c(gdp = "NY.GDP.PCAP.KD")) |>
  animate_world(gdp)

# Interactive choropleth — needs `leaflet`, `ggiraph` or `plotly`
world_data(2020) |>
  interactive_map(gdp_per_capita, engine = "plotly")

Each degrades gracefully: if the optional package is missing you get a clear, actionable message (and animate_world() falls back to a faceted small-multiple).

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
Health stats visible at Monitor.