NEWS

---

countryatlas 1.0.0 (2026-06-24)

A single, comprehensive release that takes the package from a one-function proof of concept to a complete toolkit for joining world data to maps. The spirit is unchanged — ISO codes as the universal join key, one call to a map-ready table — but pushed to its full potential.

Breaking-ish changes

• world_data() is generalised but backward-compatible: world_data(2020) still returns the classic polygon-backed, GDP-per-capita tibble. The only visible change is the column name gdp_per_capita_2015 → gdp_per_capita. A one-cycle deprecation shim keeps gdp_per_capita_2015 available as an alias (toggle with options(countryatlas.gdp_compat = FALSE)).
• The 16 regions the previous version silently dropped (Kosovo, Micronesia, the Virgin Islands, Saint Martin, Bonaire/Saba/Sint Eustatius, the Canary Islands, Madeira/Azores, …) are now matched via [wdj_overrides()] instead of deleted, so they appear on maps. Diffs of map output will show increased coverage.

New: core data assembly

• world_data() gains indicator (one or many WDI codes; named vectors drive clean column names), multi-year panels, an sf backend (geometry = "sf"), region subsetting, latest, projections and caching.
• country_data() — the lightweight, one-row-per-country analysis table.
• world_geometry() — projected, region-subset geometry (countries, centroids, coastline, borders, graticule, ocean).

New: the join engine (exposed for your data)

• standardize_country(), join_world(), attach_geometry(), country_join().

New: diagnostics

• check_country_match(), wdj_overrides(), audit_coverage() — never lose a country silently.

New: reference data & translation

• convert_country() (flags, currency, tld, research codes), country_codes(), country_groups() / in_group(), wdi_search().
• Bundled datasets: world_snapshot, country_meta, common_indicators, country_groups_tbl, world_tiles.

New: analysis helpers

• per_capita(), aggregate_regions(), rank_countries(), complete_years().

New: visualization

• world_map() (continuous / binned / quantile / jenks / categorical), bubble_map(), bivariate_map(), cartogram_map(), tile_map(), flow_map(), animate_world(), interactive_map(), geom_country_labels(), theme_world_map().

Performance & offline

• WDI fetches are memoised with an optional on-disk cache; multiple indicators are fetched in parallel (parallel::mclapply) where supported. See clear_wdi_cache().
• The bundled world_snapshot lets every example, test and vignette run offline and deterministically.

Engineering

• Namespace hygiene (targeted @importFrom instead of blanket @import).
• Input validation with friendly cli / rlang errors.
• A testthat (3e) suite; network calls are skipped offline and on CRAN.
• Vignettes and a pkgdown site.
• Refreshed CI: R-CMD-check, test-coverage and pkgdown workflows.
• Heavy spatial dependencies (sf, rnaturalearth, cartogram, biscale, geofacet, gganimate, leaflet, …) are all in Suggests and gated by rlang::check_installed(), so the base install stays light.

Group memberships in country_groups_tbl are point-in-time as of 2024-01-01.

countryatlas 0.1.0

• Initial experimental release with a single world_data(year) function.