R: Data Analysis and Visualization

Plotting data on Google maps

In this recipe, we will learn how to plot data on top of Google map images using a special package that connects to Google's Static Maps API.

Getting ready

First, we need to install the RgoogleMaps package and a related package, rgdal:

install.packages("rgdal")
library(rgdal)

install.packages("RgoogleMaps")
library(RgoogleMaps)

We will use the londonair example dataset for this recipe. This dataset contains annual average concentrations of particulate matter in London's atmosphere measured at 12 different air quality monitoring sites across the city (data source: London air website http://www.londonair.org.uk). So, let's load that too:

air<-read.csv("londonair.csv")

How to do it...

Let's pull a Google map of the London city ...