Skip to main content

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

The National Map Base Maps

Integrate The National Map services within your own interactive web map using Leaflet for R.

Date Posted April 12, 2017 Last Updated July 3, 2024
Author Jason C Fisher
Reading Time 6 minutes Share

A number of map services are offered through The National Map (TNM ). There are no use restrictions on these services . However, map content is limited to the United States and Territories. This post explains how to integrate TNM services within your own interactive web map using Leaflet for R .

R packages required for this tutorial include leaflet , rgdal , and dataRetrieval . Install the required packages from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN ) using the following commands:

for (pkg in c("leaflet", "rgdal", "dataRetrieval")) {
  if (!pkg %in% rownames(utils::installed.packages()))
    utils::install.packages(pkg, repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
}

The first step is to create a Leaflet map widget:

map <- leaflet::leaflet()

In Leaflet, a map layer is used to display a specific dataset. Map layers are organized by group. Many layers can belong to the same group, but each layer can only belong to zero or one groups. For this example, each map layer belongs to a discrete group. Create a vector of unique group names identifying the five layers to be added to the map widget:

grp <- c("USGS Topo", "USGS Imagery Only", "USGS Imagery Topo",
         "USGS Shaded Relief", "Hydrography")

Specify the line of attribution text to display in the map using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) syntax:

att <- paste0("<a href='https://www.usgs.gov/'>",
              "U.S. Geological Survey</a> | ",
              "<a href='https://www.usgs.gov/laws/policies_notices.html'>",
              "Policies</a>")

Leaflet supports base maps using map tiles . TNM base maps are available as Web Map Service (WMS ) tiles. Add tiled layers (base maps) that describe topographic information in TNM to the map widget:

GetURL <- function(service, host = "basemap.nationalmap.gov") {
  sprintf("https://%s/arcgis/services/%s/MapServer/WmsServer", host, service)
}
map <- leaflet::addWMSTiles(map, GetURL("USGSTopo"),
                            group = grp[1], attribution = att, layers = "0")
map <- leaflet::addWMSTiles(map, GetURL("USGSImageryOnly"),
                            group = grp[2], attribution = att, layers = "0")
map <- leaflet::addWMSTiles(map, GetURL("USGSImageryTopo"),
                            group = grp[3], attribution = att, layers = "0")
map <- leaflet::addWMSTiles(map, GetURL("USGSShadedReliefOnly"),
                            group = grp[4], attribution = att, layers = "0")

The content of these layers is described in the TNM Base Maps document.

An overlay map layer adds information, such as river and lake features, to a base map. Add the tiled overlay for the National Hydrography Dataset to the map widget:

opt <- leaflet::WMSTileOptions(format = "image/png", transparent = TRUE)
map <- leaflet::addWMSTiles(map, GetURL("USGSHydroCached"),
                            group = grp[5], options = opt, layers = "0")
map <- leaflet::hideGroup(map, grp[5])

Point locations, that appear on the map as icons, may be added to a base map using a marker overlay. In this example, site locations are included for selected wells in the USGS Idaho National Laboratory water-quality observation network. Create the marker-overlay dataset using the following commands (requires web access):

site_no <- c("USGS 1"    = "432700112470801",
             "USGS 14"   = "432019112563201",
             "USGS 8"    = "433121113115801",
             "USGS 126A" = "435529112471301",
             "USGS 29"   = "434407112285101",
             "USGS 52"   = "433414112554201",
             "USGS 84"   = "433356112574201",
             "TRA 4"     = "433521112574201")
dat <- dataRetrieval::readNWISsite(site_no)
sp::coordinates(dat) <- c("dec_long_va", "dec_lat_va")
sp::proj4string(dat) <- sp::CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=NAD83")
dat <- sp::spTransform(dat, sp::CRS("+init=epsg:4326"))

Popups are small boxes containing text that appear when marker icons are clicked. Specify the text to display in the popups using the HTML syntax:

num <- dat$site_no  # site number
nam <- names(site_no)[match(num, site_no)]  # local site name
url <- sprintf("https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/inventory/?site_no=%s", num)
pop <- sprintf("<b>Name:</b> %s<br/><b>Site No:</b> <a href='%s'>%s</a>",
               nam, url, num)

Add the marker overlay to the map widget:

opt <- leaflet::markerClusterOptions(showCoverageOnHover = FALSE)
map <- leaflet::addCircleMarkers(map, radius = 10, weight = 3, popup = pop,
                                 clusterOptions = opt, data = dat)

Add a Leaflet control feature that allows users to interactively show and hide base maps:

opt <- leaflet::layersControlOptions(collapsed = FALSE)
map <- leaflet::addLayersControl(map, baseGroups = grp[1:4],
                                 overlayGroups = grp[5], options = opt)

Print the map widget to display it in your web browser:

print(map)

Some users have reported that base maps do not render correctly in the RStudio viewer. Until RStudio can address this issue, the following workaround is provided:

options(viewer = NULL)
print(map)

And let’s not forget the R session information.

## - Session info ----------------------------------------------------------
##  setting  value                       
##  version  R version 3.5.1 (2018-07-02)
##  os       Windows 10 x64              
##  system   x86_64, mingw32             
##  ui       Rgui                        
##  language (EN)                        
##  collate  English_United States.1252  
##  ctype    English_United States.1252  
##  tz       America/Los_Angeles         
##  date     2018-11-08                  
## 
## - Packages --------------------------------------------------------------
##  package       * version date       lib source        
##  assertthat      0.2.0   2017-04-11 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  backports       1.1.2   2017-12-13 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.0)
##  base64enc       0.1-3   2015-07-28 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.0)
##  bindr           0.1.1   2018-03-13 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  bindrcpp        0.2.2   2018-03-29 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  callr           3.0.0   2018-08-24 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  cli             1.0.1   2018-09-25 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  crayon          1.3.4   2017-09-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  crosstalk       1.0.0   2016-12-21 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  curl            3.2     2018-03-28 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  dataRetrieval   2.7.4   2018-05-09 [1] local         
##  debugme         1.1.0   2017-10-22 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  desc            1.2.0   2018-05-01 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  devtools        2.0.1   2018-10-26 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  digest          0.6.18  2018-10-10 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  dplyr           0.7.7   2018-10-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  evaluate        0.12    2018-10-09 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  fs              1.2.6   2018-08-23 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  glue            1.3.0   2018-07-17 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  hms             0.4.2   2018-03-10 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  htmltools       0.3.6   2017-04-28 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  htmlwidgets     1.3     2018-09-30 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  httpuv          1.4.5   2018-07-19 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  httr            1.3.1   2017-08-20 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  jsonlite        1.5     2017-06-01 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  knitr           1.20    2018-02-20 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  later           0.7.5   2018-09-18 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  lattice         0.20-38 2018-11-04 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  leaflet         2.0.2   2018-08-27 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  lubridate       1.7.4   2018-04-11 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  magrittr        1.5     2014-11-22 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  memoise         1.1.0   2017-04-21 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  mime            0.6     2018-10-05 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  pillar          1.3.0   2018-07-14 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  pkgbuild        1.0.2   2018-10-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  pkgconfig       2.0.2   2018-08-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  pkgload         1.0.2   2018-10-29 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  plyr            1.8.4   2016-06-08 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  prettyunits     1.0.2   2015-07-13 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  processx        3.2.0   2018-08-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  promises        1.0.1   2018-04-13 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  ps              1.2.1   2018-11-06 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  purrr           0.2.5   2018-05-29 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  R6              2.3.0   2018-10-04 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  Rcpp            1.0.0   2018-11-07 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  readr           1.1.1   2017-05-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  remotes         2.0.2   2018-10-30 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  reshape2        1.4.3   2017-12-11 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  rgdal           1.3-6   2018-10-16 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  rlang           0.3.0.1 2018-10-25 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  rprojroot       1.3-2   2018-01-03 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  sessioninfo     1.1.1   2018-11-05 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  shiny           1.2.0   2018-11-02 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  sp              1.3-1   2018-06-05 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  stringi         1.2.4   2018-07-20 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  stringr         1.3.1   2018-05-10 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  testthat        2.0.1   2018-10-13 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  tibble          1.4.2   2018-01-22 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  tidyselect      0.2.5   2018-10-11 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  usethis         1.4.0   2018-08-14 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  withr           2.1.2   2018-03-15 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  xml2            1.2.0   2018-01-24 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  xtable          1.8-3   2018-08-29 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
##  yaml            2.2.0   2018-07-25 [1] CRAN (R 3.5.1)
## 
## [1] C:/Users/jfisher/Tools/R/R-3.5.1/library

Share:

Related Posts

  • The Hydro Network-Linked Data Index

    November 2, 2020

    Introduction updated 11-2-2020 after updates described here . updated 9-20-2024 when the NLDI moved from labs.waterdata.usgs.gov to api.water.usgs.gov/nldi/ The Hydro Network-Linked Data Index (NLDI) is a system that can index data to NHDPlus V2 catchments and offers a search service to discover indexed information.

  • Maps with inlmisc

    July 17, 2018

    Introduction This document gives a brief introduction to making static and dynamic maps using inlmisc , an R package developed by researchers at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Project Office .

  • Calculating Moving Averages and Historical Flow Quantiles

    October 25, 2016

    This post will show simple way to calculate moving averages, calculate historical-flow quantiles, and plot that information. The goal is to reproduce the graph at this link: PA Graph .

  • Using Leaflet and htmlwidgets in a Hugo-generated page

    August 23, 2016

    We are excited to use many of the JavaScript data visualizations in R using the htmlwidgets package in future posts. Having decided on using Hugo , one of our first tasks was to figure out a fairly straightforward way to incorporate these widgets.

  • Groundwater levels across US affected by Mexico earthquake

    September 12, 2017

    What happened? A magnitude 8.1 earthquake was measured in the Pacific region offshore Chiapas, Mexico at 04:49:21 UTC on September 8th 2017. Working in the Water Mission Area for the USGS, our Vizlab Team was already hard at work polishing up water visualizations for the devastating Hurricane Harvey , as well as creating a new visualization for Hurricane Irma .