Unexpected behavior of medium size country polygon download / while small & large resolution work as advertised

The ne_countries() function behaves unexpectedly in case of downloading a country polygon in medium (1:50M) resolution. This feels strange, since the very same piece of code in small or large resolution works as expected.

For a reproducible example consider this piece of code:

# this will crash...
rnaturalearth::ne_countries(country = "Czechia", scale = "medium") 

# ... while these two will work perfectly OK
rnaturalearth::ne_countries(country = "Czechia", scale = "small") 
rnaturalearth::ne_countries(country = "Czechia", scale = "large")

Works fine on my side

rnaturalearth::ne_countries(country = "Czechia", scale = "medium")
#> Simple feature collection with 1 feature and 168 fields
#> Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
#> Dimension:     XY
#> Bounding box:  xmin: 12.08975 ymin: 48.57622 xmax: 18.83223 ymax: 51.03779
#> Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84
#>          featurecla scalerank labelrank sovereignt sov_a3 adm0_dif level
#> 185 Admin-0 country         1         5    Czechia    CZE        0     2
#>                  type tlc   admin adm0_a3 geou_dif geounit gu_a3 su_dif subunit
#> 185 Sovereign country   1 Czechia     CZE        0 Czechia   CZE      0 Czechia
#>     su_a3 brk_diff    name      name_long brk_a3 brk_name brk_group abbrev
#> 185   CZE        0 Czechia Czech Republic    CZE  Czechia      <NA>    Cz.
#>     postal      formal_en             formal_fr name_ciawf note_adm0 note_brk
#> 185     CZ Czech Republic la République tchèque    Czechia      <NA>     <NA>
#>     name_sort name_alt mapcolor7 mapcolor8 mapcolor9 mapcolor13  pop_est
#> 185   Czechia    Česko         1         1         2          6 10669709
#>     pop_rank pop_year gdp_md gdp_year                    economy
#> 185       14     2019 250680     2019 2. Developed region: nonG7
#>               income_grp fips_10 iso_a2 iso_a2_eh iso_a3 iso_a3_eh iso_n3
#> 185 1. High income: OECD      EZ     CZ        CZ    CZE       CZE    203
#>     iso_n3_eh un_a3 wb_a2 wb_a3   woe_id woe_id_eh                   woe_note
#> 185       203   203    CZ   CZE 23424810  23424810 Exact WOE match as country
#>     adm0_iso adm0_diff adm0_tlc adm0_a3_us adm0_a3_fr adm0_a3_ru adm0_a3_es
#> 185      CZE      <NA>      CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE
#>     adm0_a3_cn adm0_a3_tw adm0_a3_in adm0_a3_np adm0_a3_pk adm0_a3_de
#> 185        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE
#>     adm0_a3_gb adm0_a3_br adm0_a3_il adm0_a3_ps adm0_a3_sa adm0_a3_eg
#> 185        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE
#>     adm0_a3_ma adm0_a3_pt adm0_a3_ar adm0_a3_jp adm0_a3_ko adm0_a3_vn
#> 185        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE
#>     adm0_a3_tr adm0_a3_id adm0_a3_pl adm0_a3_gr adm0_a3_it adm0_a3_nl
#> 185        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE        CZE
#>     adm0_a3_se adm0_a3_bd adm0_a3_ua adm0_a3_un adm0_a3_wb continent region_un
#> 185        CZE        CZE        CZE        -99        -99    Europe    Europe
#>          subregion             region_wb name_len long_len abbrev_len tiny
#> 185 Eastern Europe Europe & Central Asia        7       14          3  -99
#>     homepart min_zoom min_label max_label  label_x  label_y      ne_id
#> 185        1        0         4         9 15.37755 49.88236 1159320535
#>     wikidataid name_ar      name_bn    name_de        name_en         name_es
#> 185       Q213  التشيك চেক প্রজাতন্ত্র Tschechien Czech Republic República Checa
#>       name_fa  name_fr name_el name_he   name_hi    name_hu       name_id
#> 185 جمهوری چک Tchéquie  Τσεχία   צ'כיה चेक गणराज्य Csehország Republik Ceko
#>             name_it name_ja name_ko  name_nl name_pl name_pt name_ru  name_sv
#> 185 Repubblica Ceca  チェコ    체코 Tsjechië  Czechy Chéquia   Чехия Tjeckien
#>             name_tr name_uk     name_ur      name_vi name_zh   name_zht
#> 185 Çek Cumhuriyeti   Чехія چیک جمہوریہ Cộng hòa Séc    捷克 捷克共和國
#>          fclass_iso tlc_diff      fclass_tlc fclass_us fclass_fr fclass_ru
#> 185 Admin-0 country     <NA> Admin-0 country      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>
#>     fclass_es fclass_cn fclass_tw fclass_in fclass_np fclass_pk fclass_de
#> 185      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>
#>     fclass_gb fclass_br fclass_il fclass_ps fclass_sa fclass_eg fclass_ma
#> 185      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>
#>     fclass_pt fclass_ar fclass_jp fclass_ko fclass_vn fclass_tr fclass_id
#> 185      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>
#>     fclass_pl fclass_gr fclass_it fclass_nl fclass_se fclass_bd fclass_ua
#> 185      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>      <NA>
#>                           geometry
#> 185 MULTIPOLYGON (((18.83223 49...

^{Created on 2023-12-16 with reprex v2.0.2}

Session info

``` r sessioninfo::session_info() #> ─ Session info ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── #> setting value #> version R version 4.3.2 (2023-10-31) #> os Ubuntu 23.04 #> system x86_64, linux-gnu #> ui X11 #> language en_CA:en #> collate en_CA.UTF-8 #> ctype en_CA.UTF-8 #> tz America/Toronto #> date 2023-12-16 #> pandoc 2.17.1.1 @ /usr/bin/ (via rmarkdown) #> #> ─ Packages ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── #> package * version date (UTC) lib source #> class 7.3-22 2023-05-03 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> classInt 0.4-10 2023-09-05 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> cli 3.6.2 2023-12-11 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> codetools 0.2-19 2023-02-01 [3] CRAN (R 4.3.2) #> DBI 1.1.3 2022-06-18 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> digest 0.6.33 2023-07-07 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> dplyr 1.1.4 2023-11-17 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> e1071 1.7-14 2023-12-06 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> evaluate 0.23 2023-11-01 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> fansi 1.0.6 2023-12-08 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> fastmap 1.1.1 2023-02-24 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> fs 1.6.3 2023-07-20 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> generics 0.1.3 2022-07-05 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> glue 1.6.2 2022-02-24 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> htmltools 0.5.7 2023-11-03 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> httr 1.4.7 2023-08-15 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> jsonlite 1.8.8 2023-12-04 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> KernSmooth 2.23-22 2023-07-10 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> knitr 1.45 2023-10-30 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> lattice 0.22-5 2023-10-24 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> lifecycle 1.0.4 2023-11-07 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> magrittr 2.0.3 2022-03-30 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> pillar 1.9.0 2023-03-22 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> pkgconfig 2.0.3 2019-09-22 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> proxy 0.4-27 2022-06-09 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> purrr 1.0.2 2023-08-10 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> R.cache 0.16.0 2022-07-21 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> R.methodsS3 1.8.2 2022-06-13 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> R.oo 1.25.0 2022-06-12 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> R.utils 2.12.3 2023-11-18 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> R6 2.5.1 2021-08-19 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> Rcpp 1.0.11 2023-07-06 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> reprex 2.0.2 2022-08-17 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> rlang 1.1.2 2023-11-04 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> rmarkdown 2.25 2023-09-18 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> rnaturalearth 1.0.0 2023-12-12 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> rnaturalearthdata 1.0.0 2023-12-12 [1] Github (ropensci/rnaturalearthdata@de63232) #> sessioninfo 1.2.2 2021-12-06 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> sf 1.0-14 2023-07-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.2) #> sp 2.1-2 2023-11-26 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> styler 1.10.2 2023-08-29 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> terra 1.7-55 2023-10-13 [1] CRAN (R 4.3.2) #> tibble 3.2.1 2023-03-20 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> tidyselect 1.2.0 2022-10-10 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> units 0.8-5 2023-11-28 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> utf8 1.2.4 2023-10-22 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> vctrs 0.6.5 2023-12-01 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> withr 2.5.2 2023-10-30 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> xfun 0.41 2023-11-01 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> yaml 2.3.8 2023-12-11 [1] RSPM (R 4.3.0) #> #> [1] /home/filoche/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3 #> [2] /usr/local/lib/R/site-library #> [3] /usr/local/lib/R/library #> #> ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ```

I think you might want to update rnaturalearthdata

That could possibly be the issue, although I am using the latest CRAN version of both rnaturalearth and rnaturalearthdata. On a deeper investigation I see this:

setdiff(rnaturalearth::ne_countries(scale = "medium")$admin,
        rnaturalearth::ne_countries(scale = "small")$admin)
#  [1] "Aruba"                                    "Anguilla"                                
#  [3] "Aland"                                    "Andorra"                                 
#  [5] "American Samoa"                           "Ashmore and Cartier Islands"             
#  [7] "Antigua and Barbuda"                      "Bahrain"                                 
#  [9] "Saint Barthelemy"                         "Bermuda"                                 
# [11] "Barbados"                                 "Republic of Congo"                       
# [13] "Cook Islands"                             "Comoros"                                 
# [15] "Cape Verde"                               "Curaçao"                                 
# [17] "Cayman Islands"                           "Czech Republic"                          
# [19] "Dominica"                                 "Faroe Islands"                           
# [21] "Federated States of Micronesia"           "Guernsey"                                
# [23] "Guinea Bissau"                            "Grenada"                                 
# [25] "Guam"                                     "Hong Kong S.A.R."                        
# [27] "Heard Island and McDonald Islands"        "Isle of Man"                             
# [29] "Indian Ocean Territories"                 "British Indian Ocean Territory"          
# [31] "Jersey"                                   "Siachen Glacier"                         
# [33] "Kiribati"                                 "Saint Kitts and Nevis"                   
# [35] "Saint Lucia"                              "Liechtenstein"                           
# [37] "Macao S.A.R"                              "Saint Martin"                            
# [39] "Monaco"                                   "Maldives"                                
# [41] "Marshall Islands"                         "Macedonia"                               
# [43] "Malta"                                    "Northern Mariana Islands"                
# [45] "Montserrat"                               "Mauritius"                               
# [47] "Norfolk Island"                           "Niue"                                    
# [49] "Nauru"                                    "Pitcairn Islands"                        
# [51] "Palau"                                    "French Polynesia"                        
# [53] "Singapore"                                "South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands"
# [55] "Saint Helena"                             "San Marino"                              
# [57] "Saint Pierre and Miquelon"                "Sao Tome and Principe"                   
# [59] "Swaziland"                                "Sint Maarten"                            
# [61] "Seychelles"                               "Turks and Caicos Islands"                
# [63] "Tonga"                                    "Vatican"                                 
# [65] "Saint Vincent and the Grenadines"         "British Virgin Islands"                  
# [67] "United States Virgin Islands"             "Wallis and Futuna"                       
# [69] "Samoa"

which is kind of unexpected... but not exactly wrong, as Czechia is listed, but under Czech Republic name (number 18).

But if you think it is OK on a standard installation then feel free to close the issue - I can sidestep the issue very easily, just wanted to give you heads up in case the problem pops up in a more serious use case than was mine.

Thank you for reporting.

I just downloaded the data directly on naturalearth and it looks like it is coming from the source data:

library(sf)
#> Linking to GEOS 3.12.1, GDAL 3.8.0, PROJ 9.2.0; sf_use_s2() is TRUE

small <- st_read("/vsizip/vsicurl/https://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/110m/cultural/ne_110m_admin_0_countries.zip")
#> Reading layer `ne_110m_admin_0_countries' from data source 
#>   `/vsizip/vsicurl/https://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/110m/cultural/ne_110m_admin_0_countries.zip' 
#>   using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
#> Simple feature collection with 177 features and 168 fields
#> Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
#> Dimension:     XY
#> Bounding box:  xmin: -180 ymin: -90 xmax: 180 ymax: 83.64513
#> Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84

medium <- st_read("/vsizip/vsicurl/https://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/50m/cultural/ne_50m_admin_0_countries.zip")
#> Reading layer `ne_50m_admin_0_countries' from data source 
#>   `/vsizip/vsicurl/https://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/50m/cultural/ne_50m_admin_0_countries.zip' 
#>   using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
#> Warning in CPL_read_ogr(dsn, layer, query, as.character(options), quiet, : GDAL
#> Message 1:
#> /vsizip/vsicurl/https://www.naturalearthdata.com/http//www.naturalearthdata.com/download/50m/cultural/ne_50m_admin_0_countries.zip/ne_50m_admin_0_countries.shp
#> contains polygon(s) with rings with invalid winding order. Autocorrecting them,
#> but that shapefile should be corrected using ogr2ogr for example.
#> Simple feature collection with 242 features and 168 fields
#> Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
#> Dimension:     XY
#> Bounding box:  xmin: -180 ymin: -89.99893 xmax: 180 ymax: 83.59961
#> Geodetic CRS:  WGS 84

setdiff(small$ADMIN, medium$ADMIN)
#> character(0)
setdiff(medium$ADMIN, small$ADMIN)
#>  [1] "Vatican"                           "Federated States of Micronesia"   
#>  [3] "Marshall Islands"                  "Northern Mariana Islands"         
#>  [5] "United States Virgin Islands"      "Guam"                             
#>  [7] "American Samoa"                    "South Georgia and the Islands"    
#>  [9] "British Indian Ocean Territory"    "Saint Helena"                     
#> [11] "Pitcairn Islands"                  "Anguilla"                         
#> [13] "Cayman Islands"                    "Bermuda"                          
#> [15] "British Virgin Islands"            "Turks and Caicos Islands"         
#> [17] "Montserrat"                        "Jersey"                           
#> [19] "Guernsey"                          "Isle of Man"                      
#> [21] "Tonga"                             "Singapore"                        
#> [23] "Seychelles"                        "São Tomé and Principe"            
#> [25] "San Marino"                        "Samoa"                            
#> [27] "Saint Vincent and the Grenadines"  "Saint Lucia"                      
#> [29] "Saint Kitts and Nevis"             "Palau"                            
#> [31] "Niue"                              "Cook Islands"                     
#> [33] "Aruba"                             "Curaçao"                          
#> [35] "Nauru"                             "Monaco"                           
#> [37] "Mauritius"                         "Malta"                            
#> [39] "Maldives"                          "Liechtenstein"                    
#> [41] "Kiribati"                          "Grenada"                          
#> [43] "Saint Pierre and Miquelon"         "Wallis and Futuna"                
#> [45] "Saint Martin"                      "Saint Barthelemy"                 
#> [47] "French Polynesia"                  "Aland"                            
#> [49] "Dominica"                          "Faroe Islands"                    
#> [51] "Comoros"                           "Macao S.A.R"                      
#> [53] "Hong Kong S.A.R."                  "Cabo Verde"                       
#> [55] "Barbados"                          "Bahrain"                          
#> [57] "Indian Ocean Territories"          "Heard Island and McDonald Islands"
#> [59] "Norfolk Island"                    "Ashmore and Cartier Islands"      
#> [61] "Antigua and Barbuda"               "Andorra"                          
#> [63] "Siachen Glacier"                   "Sint Maarten"                     
#> [65] "Tuvalu"

^{Created on 2023-12-16 with reprex v2.0.2}

ropensci / rnaturalearth

Unexpected behavior of medium size country polygon download / while small & large resolution work as advertised #105