Files for plotting maps of Canada

This repository contains simplified GeoJSON and shapefiles for plotting maps of Canada. The original shapefiles were obtained from

• Statistics Canada 2016 Census provincial/teritorial - Boundary files

• Statistics Canada 2021 Census forward sortation areas (FSA) - Boundary files

which are saved in the statcan_files/ directory. Large files are not included in this repository. Download if any files are not uploaded.

The purpose of this repository is to provide simplified map files, as the original files can be large and takes time to plot. The simplifying process can remove fine details in the boundaries, especially along small geographies.

What to download

The converted files are available in the exported_files directory as

• GeoJSON files obtained from directly converting shapefiles (province_territory.geojson, forward_sortation_areas.geojson),
• GeoJSON files of the simplified boundaries (province_territory_simplified.geojson, forward_sortation_areas_simplified.geojson),
• shapefiles of the simplified boundaries (province_territory_simplified_sp, forward_sortation_areas_simplified_sp).

Example: How to plot in R

These are plotted using the ggplot2 package. See [1] and [2] for code to plot using base plotting functions.

library(ggplot2)

From original shapefiles

province_territory_map_original_sp <- sf::read_sf(
  dsn = here::here("statcan_files", "province_territory_map"), 
  layer = "lpr_000b16a_e"
)

p_original <- ggplot(
  data = province_territory_map_original_sp
) + 
  geom_sf() + 
  theme_void()

system.time(
  plot(p_original)  
)

##    user  system elapsed 
##    2.21    4.14    7.78

From simplified shapefiles

province_territory_map_sim_sp <- sf::read_sf(
  dsn = here::here("exported_files", "province_territory_simplified_sp"), 
  layer = "province_territory_simplified_sp"
)

p_sim_sp <- ggplot(
  data = province_territory_map_sim_sp
) + 
  geom_sf() + 
  theme_void()

system.time(
  plot(p_sim_sp)
)

##    user  system elapsed 
##    0.20    0.30    0.63

From simplified GeoJSON files

province_territory_map_sim_json <- geojsonio::geojson_read(
  x = here::here("exported_files", "province_territory_simplified.geojson"),
  what = "sp"
)

## Registered S3 method overwritten by 'geojsonsf':
##   method        from   
##   print.geojson geojson

p_sim_json <- ggplot(
  data = province_territory_map_sim_json,
  mapping = aes(x = long, y = lat, group = group)
) + 
  geom_polygon(
    colour = "white"
  ) + 
  theme_void()

## Warning: `fortify(<SpatialPolygonsDataFrame>)` was deprecated in ggplot2 3.4.4.
## ℹ Please migrate to sf.
## ℹ The deprecated feature was likely used in the ggplot2 package.
##   Please report the issue at <https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues>.
## This warning is displayed once every 8 hours.
## Call `lifecycle::last_lifecycle_warnings()` to see where this warning was
## generated.

## Regions defined for each Polygons

system.time(
  plot(p_sim_json)
)

##    user  system elapsed 
##    0.06    0.28    0.46

Additional notes

The R code used to generate simplified boundary files are available at r_src/generate_geojson.r.

References

[1] https://www.r-graph-gallery.com/168-load-a-shape-file-into-r.html
[2] https://www.r-graph-gallery.com/325-background-map-from-geojson-format-in-r.html