Changes in the representation of coordinate reference systems (CRS), and of operations on coordinates, that have been occurring over decades must now be implemented in the way spatial objects are handled in R packages. Up to the 1990s, most spatial data simply used the coordinates given by the local mapping authority; for example, the Meuse bank data set used a planar representation in metres, which turned out to be EPSG:28992, “Amersfoort / RD New.” A major resource for finding out why CRS were specified as they were are Clifford J. Mugnier’s columns in Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, references to which are available in rgdal; the Netherlands were covered in the February 2003 column:
td <- tempfile()
dir.create(td)
Sys.setenv("PROJ_USER_WRITABLE_DIRECTORY"=td)
library(rgdal)## Loading required package: sp## Please note that rgdal will be retired during 2023,
## plan transition to sf/stars/terra functions using GDAL and PROJ
## at your earliest convenience.
## See https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html and https://github.com/r-spatial/evolution
## rgdal: version: 1.6-5, (SVN revision 1199)
## Geospatial Data Abstraction Library extensions to R successfully loaded
## Loaded GDAL runtime: GDAL 3.6.2, released 2023/01/02
## Path to GDAL shared files: /usr/local/share/gdal
## GDAL does not use iconv for recoding strings.
## GDAL binary built with GEOS: TRUE
## Loaded PROJ runtime: Rel. 9.2.0, March 1st, 2023, [PJ_VERSION: 920]
## Path to PROJ shared files: /tmp/Rtmp4rApGL/file1038e02526a344:/usr/local/share/proj:/usr/local/share/proj
## PROJ CDN enabled: FALSE
## Linking to sp version:1.6-0
## To mute warnings of possible GDAL/OSR exportToProj4() degradation,
## use options("rgdal_show_exportToProj4_warnings"="none") before loading sp or rgdal.data("GridsDatums")
GridsDatums[grep("Netherlands", GridsDatums$country),]## country month year