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lightsf

The lightsf package provides a unified collection of geospatial datasets designed for spatial data analysis, geographic visualization, and educational purposes in R. It offers ready-to-use spatial objects in formats such as sf, SpatialPolygons, SpatialPoints, and data.frame, ensuring compatibility with both modern and classical spatial workflows.

The datasets included in lightsf come from well-established spatial data packages such as spData, spdep, and maptools, curated and harmonized for easy access and teaching use. This package helps users explore spatial relationships, perform geostatistical analyses, and visualize spatial structures without needing to preprocess data manually.

Installation

You can install the lightsf package from CRAN with the following R function:

install.packages("lightsf")

Usage

After installation, load the package and start exploring and using its datasets.

lightsf Datasets

Below is a list of some of the main datasets included in the package:

  • boston_pts: Boston housing data with geographic coordinates (506 observations, 20 variables).
  • dc_poly: Polygon boundaries of Washington D.C. used for spatial analysis and mapping.
  • countries_pts: A dataset containing latitude, longitude, and names for 245 countries worldwide.
  • mastigouche_poly: A spatial object containing polygonal data for Mastigouche ecological reserve boundaries.

Each dataset has been formatted to support immediate spatial workflows in R, including use with packages such as sf, spdep, and tmap.

Dataset Suffixes

Each dataset in lightsf is labeled with a suffix to indicate its structure and type:

  • _pts: Refers to point-based datasets that include georeferenced locations, usually represented by latitude and longitude coordinates.

  • _poly: Refers to polygon-based datasets, typically representing areas, administrative boundaries, or spatial zones.

  • _points: Refers to point datasets similar to _pts, often derived from other spatial sources or including additional spatial or attribute information.

Example Code 

# Load the package
library(lightsf)

# Load the Boston dataset
data(boston_pts)

# View the first rows
head(boston_pts)

# Display the structure
str(boston_pts)

# Visualize with sf
library(sf)
plot(st_geometry(boston_pts), main = "Boston Housing Spatial Points")

# Load and view polygon data
data(dc_poly)
plot(dc_poly, col = 'lightblue', main = "Washington D.C. Polygons")