get_ons_geom {osdatahub}

Retrieve ONS geographies

Description

Query the Office for National Statistics online geography resources.

Usage

get_ons_geom(ons_code, returnType = c("wkt", "geojson", "geos", "sf"))

Arguments

ons_code

(character) A single ONS code representing a statistical area.

returnType

(character) Representation for the returned geometry. Choose 'wkt' or 'geojson' to return the geometry in Well-Known Text format or GeoJSON, respectively, 'geos' to return an object of class geos or 'sf' for a Simple Features object of class sf. Default is WKT format.

Details

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) maintains a source of official geographies for the UK, such as county boundaries, electoral wards, parishes, and census output areas. These boundaries are commonly used for data analysis, particularly of socio-economic factors. A full list of available ONS geographies can be found here: https://statistics.data.gov.uk:443/atlas/resource?uri=http://statistics.data.gov.uk/id/statistical-geography/K02000001.

When returning a geos object, the coordinate reference system attribute will be set to CRS code 84 by default and not to a full CRS definition. The sf package must be installed in order to return an object of class sf.

Data from the ONS are provided under the terms of the Open Government Licence https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. For more information, please see: https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/licences.

Value

The coordinates of the polygon boundary in either Well-Known Text (WKT) format, GeoJSON format, an object of class geos or as a Simple Features object of class sf.

Examples

# Retrieve geography.
geog <- get_ons_geom("E05002470")