Dear Alina, If you load two datasets to R and you want to merge them via some key (e.g. zip code), you have to consider using the "merge" method e.g.: > spdata <- merge(x=data.frame(ZIP=zipshape$ZIP, X=zipshape$X, Y=zipshape$Y), > y=data.frame(ZIP=customers$ZIP, V=customers$V), by=ZIP, all.y=F) > coordinates(merge) <-~X+Y You could also consider using the Google service to geocode the addresses (I do not know how accurate is your US zip shape file, Google data is pretty accurate). You should be able to figure out from this example what you have to do automate retrieval of coordinates from addresses: http://spatial-analyst.net/wiki/index.php?title=Mapping_research_hot-spots#Geocoding_addresses HTH Tom Hengl
________________________________ From: r-sig-geo-boun...@stat.math.ethz.ch on behalf of Alina Sheyman Sent: Tue 3/3/2009 8:49 PM To: R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: [R-sig-Geo] mapping by zip codes I'm very new to creating maps using shapefiles, so this question might be pretty basic. I'm trying to create a map of the US, divided up by zip codes, where i then map number of customers by zip code. I located shapefiles for US with zip codes (although at this point only for individual states, and not the entire country) and read it into R using maptools, but now I need to apply my data (which I read into R as a separate data frame and not a shapefile) to that map. Which is the part where I get completely lost and not sure how to proceed. If anyone could give me any pointers I'd really appreciate it. thank you [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ R-sig-Geo mailing list R-sig-Geo@stat.math.ethz.ch https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-geo