R help - Jul 2010 - Can I create an European map using the map function in R

Hi,

 

I am trying to create a spatial weight matrix based on the neighboring
relationship among Europan countries.  Can I use the map function in R to
generate a European map and then use this map to build the w weight matrix?  So
far, I cannot create a map for Finland using the map function.

 

Also, I am not very sure about the steps in importing external map data and use
that information to generate a spatial weight matrix in R.  Could anyone show me
how to implement this using European countries as an example?

 

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

Maomao





 

 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox.

N:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_3
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

On Tue, 27 Jul 2010, Maomao Luo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to create a spatial weight matrix based on the neighboring
> relationship among Europan countries.  Can I use the map function in R to
> generate a European map and then use this map to build the w weight matrix?
>  So far, I cannot create a map for Finland using the map function.
>
It is not clear to me what you mean by "... use this map to build the w
weight matrix".
How can you use an image on the screen to generate a matrix?

However, to get the map of Europe using the maps package, try something like
this:

library(maps)
m <- map("world", xlim=c(-10, 30), ylim=c(35, 60))
Europe <- sort(m$names)
fix(Europe)	# remove anything you don't need
map("world", Europe, exact=T)

Note for example, you will need to leave in "UK:Great Britain" and
"UK:Northern Ireland",
since there is no country called "UK".  Similarly, Malta is named as
"Malta:Malta".

Hope this helps,
Ray Brownrigg
>
> Also, I am not very sure about the steps in importing external map data and
> use that information to generate a spatial weight matrix in R.  Could
> anyone show me how to implement this using European countries as an
> example?
>
Pass.
> Thanks a lot for your help.
>
> Maomao