Unable to plot the census tracts using tmap

Question

I am getting an error in plotting the census tract of New York using tmap. Below is an example and the error.

It requires API key which is free. Here is the link - https://api.census.gov/data/key_signup.html

library(tidycensus)
library(tmap)

census_api_key("it requires API key")


NY <- get_acs(
  geography = "tract",
  table = "B19001",
  state = "NY", 
  year = 2020,
  geometry = TRUE,
  cache_table = TRUE
)

tm_shape(shp = NY) + 
  tm_polygons()

I am getting an error.

Error in `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, "SHAPE_AREAS", value = c(5.02814518540036,  : 
  replacement has 91698 rows, data has 91987
In addition: Warning message:
The shape NY contains empty units.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 09 '22 at 13:57

It looks like get_acs() returns 289 empty geometries which causes the tmap error. Using sf::st_make_valid takes care of the error, though it still causes a warning.

More discussion on empty geometries and what to do about them here: https://r-spatial.org/r/2017/03/19/invalid.html#empty-geometries

NY <- get_acs(
  geography = "tract",
  table = "B19001",
  state = "NY", 
  year = 2020,
  geometry = TRUE,
  cache_table = TRUE
)

tm_shape(shp = st_make_valid(NY)) +  ### <- added st_make_valid here
  tm_polygons()

Unable to plot the census tracts using tmap

1 Answers1