Queries ONS' Geoportal endpoints and retrieves the requested geographical boundaries in the form of a sf object.
Arguments
- boundary
a string containing the acronym of name of the boundary to be downloaded. Accepted values are: CAUTH, CED, CTRY, CTY, CTYUA, LAD, LPA, LSOA, MCTY, MSOA, OA, PAR, PARNCP, RGN, UTLA, WD
- year
a number containing the year when the boundary was created.
- detail_level
a string defining the level of detail in the geometry. (this affects the download size). Accepted values are: BFC, BFE, BGC, BUC. Each value corresponds to:
Full Extent (BFE) – Full resolution boundaries go to the Extent of the Realm (Low Water Mark) and are the most detailed of the boundaries.
Full Clipped (BFC) – Full resolution boundaries that are clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).
Generalised Clipped (BGC) - Generalised to 20m and clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark) and more generalised than the BFE boundaries.
Super Generalised Clipped (BSC) (200m) – Generalised to 200m and clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).
Ultra Generalised Clipped (BUC) (500m) – Generalised to 500m and clipped to the coastline (Mean High Water mark).
Grid, Extent (BGE) - Grid formed of equally sized cells which extend beyond the coastline.
Generalised, Grid (BGG) - Generalised 50m grid squares.
For a detailed description of how these boundaries were created refer to Digital boundaries
Examples
countries_2023 <- boundaries_get("CTRY", 2023, "BUC")
#> ℹ Querying ONS API
#> ✔ Querying ONS API [8ms]
#>
#> ⠙ Downloading the selected dataset from ONS services
#> Warning: GDAL Message 1: organizePolygons() received a polygon with more than 100 parts. The processing may be really slow. You can skip the processing by setting METHOD=SKIP, or only make it analyze counter-clock wise parts by setting METHOD=ONLY_CCW if you can assume that the outline of holes is counter-clock wise defined
#> ✔ Downloading the selected dataset from ONS services [1.2s]
#>
class(countries_2023)
#> [1] "sf" "tbl_df" "tbl" "data.frame"