Identify and visualize European NUTS regions from geographic coordinates using Eurostat geospatial data.

Overview

geonuts is a lightweight R package that maps latitude/longitude to EU NUTS regions
(levels 0–3) and provides quick validation maps.

• Fast lookup for many points
• level = "all" to return NUTS0–NUTS3 at once
• Optional nearest‐polygon fallback for points just off the coast
• Clean maps with auto-zoom and frequency shading
• Uses official Eurostat layers via eurostat (and compatible with giscoR)

Installation

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("aikatona/geonuts")

Quick start

library(geonuts)

# Example coordinates (Berlin, Paris, Rome)
lat <- c(52.5200, 48.8566, 41.9028)
lon <- c(13.4050, 2.3522, 12.4964)

# 1) Identify NUTS regions at all levels
nuts_all <- get_nuts(
  latitude   = lat,
  longitude  = lon,
  level      = "all",
  year       = 2021,
  resolution = 20,
  verbose    = FALSE
)
nuts_all

##       lat     lon nuts0 nuts1 nuts2 nuts3 cntr_code match_status match_dist_km year
## 1 52.5200 13.4050    DE   DE3  DE30 DE300        DE      matched            NA 2021
## 2 48.8566  2.3522    FR   FR1  FR10 FR101        FR      matched            NA 2021
## 3 41.9028 12.4964    IT  <NA>  <NA>  <NA>        IT    unmatched            NA 2021
##   resolution
## 1         20
## 2         20
## 3         20

#>   lat    lon nuts0 nuts1   nuts2    nuts3 cntr_code match_status match_dist_km year resolution
#>  ... (table truncated in README for brevity)

# 2) Map (NUTS3) with points
map_nuts(nuts_all, map_level = 3, show_points = TRUE)

## [geonuts] Using cached NUTS layer.
## [geonuts] Rendered map: level=3, year=2021, resolution=20.

# 3) Restrict map to a country (e.g., Italy)
map_nuts(nuts_all, map_level = 3, country = "IT")

## [geonuts] Using cached NUTS layer.
## [geonuts] Rendered map: level=3, year=2021, resolution=20, country=IT.

Nearest fallback (over water)

# A point in the Bay of Biscay plus Berlin
lat2 <- c(52.5200, 43.8000)
lon2 <- c(13.4050, -2.5000)

res <- get_nuts(
  latitude        = lat2,
  longitude       = lon2,
  level           = 3,
  match_strategy  = "nearest",
  nearest_max_km  = 400,
  year            = 2021,
  resolution      = 20,
  verbose         = FALSE
)
res

##     lat    lon  nuts cntr_code match_status match_dist_km level year resolution
## 1 52.52 13.405 DE300        DE      matched            NA     3 2021         20
## 2 43.80 -2.500 FRI13        FR      nearest      82.83546     3 2021         20

Notes on data and caching

• Geometries are fetched via eurostat::get_eurostat_geospatial() and cached.
• Once downloaded, subsequent calls are much faster and work offline.
• To clear the Eurostat cache:

unlink(tools::R_user_dir("eurostat", "cache"), recursive = TRUE)

Functions

• get_nuts(): Identify NUTS for coordinates (single level 0/1/2/3 or “all”).
• map_nuts(): Visualize matches; auto-zoom; optional frequency legend (shown only if any region has count > 1).

Vignette

A longer walk-through is available as an HTML vignette:

# Build once locally
devtools::build_vignettes()
browseVignettes("geonuts")

Citation

If you use geonuts in published work, please cite the GitHub repository:

Katona, A. I., & Kurbucz, M. T. (2025). geonuts: Identify and Visualize European NUTS Regions from Geolocations. GitHub: aikatona/geonuts.