Plotting static base map underneath a sf object

Question

I'm trying to plot a static base map underneath my sf object (for print). When using ggmap I first get a lot of errors, then I can't seem to figure out how to chain the base map to my ggplot2 object with a geom_sf.

library(sf)
# devtools::install_github("tidyverse/ggplot2")
library(ggplot2)
library(ggmap) 

nc <- st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package="sf"))
nc_map <- get_map(location = "North Carolina, NC", zoom = 7)

ggmap(nc_map)

nc_centers <- st_centroid(nc)

nc_centers %>%
  ggplot() +
  geom_sf(aes(color = SID79, size = BIR74),
          show.legend = "point") +
  coord_sf(datum = NA) +
  theme_minimal()

I also rather use the source = "osm" as style but those will always return '400 Bad Request'.

Is there maybe another good package for base maps?

Answer 1

You might consider reprojecting your data but the following code seems to work for me.
See here for an explanation about why you need inherit.aes = FALSE and see here for an alternative solution with base plots.

library(sf)
#> Linking to GEOS 3.5.1, GDAL 2.1.3, proj.4 4.9.2
# devtools::install_github("r-lib/rlang")
library(ggplot2)
library(ggmap) 

nc <- st_read(system.file("shape/nc.shp", package="sf"))
#> Reading layer `nc' from data source `/home/gilles/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/3.4/sf/shape/nc.shp' using driver `ESRI Shapefile'
#> Simple feature collection with 100 features and 14 fields
#> geometry type:  MULTIPOLYGON
#> dimension:      XY
#> bbox:           xmin: -84.32385 ymin: 33.88199 xmax: -75.45698 ymax: 36.58965
#> epsg (SRID):    4267
#> proj4string:    +proj=longlat +datum=NAD27 +no_defs
nc_map <- get_map(location = "North Carolina, NC", zoom = 7)
#> Map from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=North+Carolina,+NC&zoom=7&size=640x640&scale=2&maptype=terrain&language=en-EN&sensor=false
#> Information from URL : http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=North%20Carolina,%20NC&sensor=false
nc_centers <- st_centroid(nc)
#> Warning in st_centroid.sfc(st_geometry(x), of_largest_polygon =
#> of_largest_polygon): st_centroid does not give correct centroids for
#> longitude/latitude data

ggmap(nc_map) +
    geom_sf(data = nc_centers, 
            aes(color = SID79, size = BIR74),
            show.legend = "point", inherit.aes = FALSE) +
    coord_sf(datum = NA) +
    theme_minimal()
#> Coordinate system already present. Adding new coordinate system, which will replace the existing one.

Created on 2018-04-03 by the reprex package (v0.2.0).