How to intersect maps using Tigris (and keeping all maps boundaries)?

Question

Sorry for this very basic question but I'm new using Tigris. I would like create a shapefile (and then plot it) of county boundaries + places boundaries for the state of Minnesota.

Here is my code to get the counties:

mn_counties = tigris::counties(cb = T) %>%
  filter(STUSPS == 'MN')

And here is my code to get the intersection between places and counties:

mn_places = tigris::places(cb = T) %>%
  filter(STUSPS == 'MN') %>%
  sf::st_intersection(mn_counties)

However, when I plot the intersection of these maps (counties and places), I just can see the polygons for the places map, but not for the counties.

tm_shape(mn_places) + tm_polygons()

Can anyone please tell me how to get an intersection of counties and places: 1. using tigris and, 2. that I'm able to see both places and county boundaries?

Many thanks in advance!!!

try plotting the country shp first. as you may just be zoomed in too far to see the borders (meaning the bbox belongs to the places and is too small in scope) — D.J, Jun 30 '22 at 12:26
@D.J : I wasn't able either!! Could you please show me how you'd do it? — Adriana Castillo Castillo, Jun 30 '22 at 13:38

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '22 at 13:35

If I am understanding you correctly, you want places and counties in the same dataset. This is accomplished with dplyr::bind_rows():

library(tigris)
library(dplyr)
library(tmap)

mn_counties_and_places <- counties(state = "MN", cb = TRUE) %>%
  bind_rows(
    places(state = "MN", cb = TRUE)
  )

tm_shape(mn_counties_and_places) + 
  tm_polygons()

How to intersect maps using Tigris (and keeping all maps boundaries)?

1 Answers1