ABSTRACT
Spatial data are often stored in special data structures. The most commonly used format for spatial data is called a shapefile. Spatial data consists not of rows and columns, but of geometric objects like points, lines, and polygons. When data contain geographic coordinates, they can be considered a type of spatial data. The field of spatial statistics concerns building and interpreting models that include spatial coordinates. The data contain the geographic coordinates of each airport, so they are spatially-aware. The most famous early analysis of spatial data was done by physician John Snow in 1854. The Violations data frame in the mdsr contains information on Board of Health violations by New York City restaurants. Shapefiles contain vector-based instructions for drawing the boundaries of countries, counties, and towns, etc. As such, shapefiles are richer—and more complicated—data containers than simple data frames.
