data(coastlineWorld)ne_110m_admin_0_countries.shp. This procedure worked in July 2015 and
also in October 2015, so it is likely to be reasonably stable, but be aware
that webpages do tend to change.coastlineWorld, to avoid conflicts with the built-in dataset. Save the
.rda file to some directory of your choosing, e.g. perhaps
/data/coastlines or ~/data/coastlines on a unix-type machine.
Then, whenever you need the file, use load to load it. Most
users find it convenient to do the loading in an Rprofile
startup file.
downloadstab. Three data sets are provided. Choose the coarse one,
labelled ``Small scale data, 1:110m.'' ForcoastlineWorld, the link
named ``Cultural'' was clicked, and this yields a new webpage.
On this page, find the section named ``Admin 0 - Countries'' and select the
link named ``Download countries.'' Now you will have a zip file on your
machine.coastlineWorldMedium and coastlineWorldFine.
The documentation for coastline-class explains the structure of
coastline objects and discusses functions that deal with them. The maps package provides a database named world that has 27221
points.