jpmap is intentionally named and designed as a Japan
counterpart to usmap:
users should be able to ask for a map, join ordinary tabular data, and
plot a choropleth or point map without first becoming GIS
specialists.
The package focuses on four things together:
jp_map() / plot_jpmap()
workflow;| Package or project | Main use | Difference from jpmap |
|---|---|---|
NipponMap |
Simple prefecture maps and circle cartograms. | Prefecture-level only. Its manual notes that boundaries are simplified by hand and omit minor islands. |
jpndistrict |
Japanese administrative areas, offices, and reverse geocoding. | Historically important, but archived from CRAN. It does not provide
a plot_jpmap()-style static map workflow. |
UchidaMizuki/jpmap |
Prefecture sf data and layout_japan() for
ggplot2. |
Prefecture-level only and GitHub-only. |
kokudosuuchi |
Download and read National Land Numerical Information data. | A data-access utility rather than an opinionated map plotting package. |
jpcity |
Municipality code and name conversion. | A useful companion package, not a boundary or map plotting package. |
jpgrid
and jpmesh |
Japanese grid-square and mesh-code workflows. | Mesh/grid maps rather than prefecture and municipality choropleth maps. |
maps and
mapdata |
General legacy map databases. | Not Japan-administrative-boundary focused; mapdata
notes that its world map is outdated. |
geodata
and rnaturalearth |
General global geographic data. | Useful for global context, but not a Japan-first plotting workflow. |
There are also many small scripts and example repositories that show
how to download a shapefile and draw a one-off Japan map. Those are
useful examples, but jpmap aims to make the repeated
workflow reusable.
Japan map packages handle disputed areas inconsistently. In a source and documentation check on June 14, 2026, the packages above did not provide a documented user-facing option equivalent to:
jpndistrict source data includes rows for some Northern
Territories municipalities, but that is not the same as an explicit
disputed-territory layer with documented inclusion/exclusion controls,
separate styling options, and documented source notes.
Users can remove disputed-territory shapes with
territorial_disputes = FALSE, include only selected areas,
or highlight them with disputed_fill and
disputed_dots.
Use jpmap when your goal is to publish or analyze a
Japan map with ordinary R data:
library(jpmap)
plot_jpmap("prefecture")
plot_jpmap("municipality", include = "Okinawa")
plot_jpmap("prefecture", territorial_disputes = FALSE)Use companion packages when they solve a more specific part of the
workflow: jpcity for code conversion,
kokudosuuchi for lower-level access to MLIT datasets, and
jpgrid or jpmesh for grid-square analysis.