Download and use Census TIGER shapefiles in R

Current version: 0.1 (updated 11 October 2015)

tigris is an R package that allows users to directly download and use TIGER/Line shapefiles (https://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger-line.html) from the US Census Bureau.

To install the package from CRAN, issue the following command in R:

install.packages('tigris')

Or, get the development version from GitHub:

devtools::install_github('walkerke/tigris')

Basic usage:

library(tigris)
library(sp)

# Basic plot of US urbanized areas

ua <- urban_areas(cb = TRUE)

plot(ua)

# Interactive Leaflet map (requires the leaflet R package)

library(leaflet)

ua %>% leaflet() %>% addTiles() %>% addPolygons(popup = ~NAME10)

For more information on how to use this package, please view the RPubs at http://rpubs.com/walkerke/tigris01.

In Version 0.1:

• The detailed parameter is now deprecated; replace it with cb = TRUE to get cartographic boundary files. When applicable, this allows users to get very-generalized cartographic boundary files by supplying 5m or 20m to the resolution parameter.
• There is much more documentation available! Keep an eye out, we hope to have the package on CRAN soon.

In Version 0.0.8:

• tigris now caches shapefile downloads! Download the file once, and tigris will store the downloaded shapefile in a special directory so you don't have to re-download every time. To turn off this behavior, change the option with options(tigris_use_cache = FALSE).
• tigris is also now much smarter when handling geography arguments. For example, tracts("TX", "Dallas") will get you Census tracts for Dallas County, TX without having to know the FIPS code.
• You can combine multiple tigris objects of the same type with the new rbind_tigris function
• Multiple years are now supported! tigris defaults to 2014, but you can change years with the new tigris_year option. For example, specifying options(tigris_year = 2015) will tell tigris to download the new 2015 TIGER/Line files in your R session. A caution: not everything is available in every year; for example, generalized cartographic boundary files are not released for 2015 yet, so the detailed = FALSE argument won't work.
• There is much more - download the package and try it out!

Version 0.0.5 release highlights:

• Many new geographies are available for download - state legislative districts, urbanized areas, Native American areas, and lots more!
• For many geographies (e.g. states, counties, Census tracts, etc.) an optional argument, detailed = FALSE, can be supplied to download simplified (smaller) shapefiles. While not recommended for analysis, their smaller size makes them better for mapping.
• A new function, lookup_code, allows you to look up FIPS codes for states and counties interactively.
• Zip Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) have an optional parameter, starts_with, that allows you to supply an argument to return only those ZCTAs that begin with that string