With R, it is extremely easy to draw maps. Let us start with something simple, like French regions. Baptiste mentioned on his blog that shapefiles can be downloaded from http://ign.fr/ website. Hence, if you extract the zip file, it is possible to get claims frequency per region (as done in the course ACT2040),

> library(maptools)
> library(maps)
> departements<-readShapeSpatial("DEPARTEMENT.SHP")
> region<-tapply(baseFREQ[,"nbre"],
+ as.factor(baseFREQ[,"region"]),sum)/
+ tapply(baseFREQ[,"exposition"],
+ as.factor(baseFREQ[,"region"]),sum)
> depFREQ=rep(NA,nrow(departements))
> names(depFREQ)=as.character(
+ departements$CODE_REG)
> for(nom in names(region)){
+ depFREQ[names(depFREQ)==nom] =
+ region[nom]}
> plot(departements,col=gray((depFREQ-.05)*20))
> legend(166963,6561753,legend=seq(1,0,by=-.1)/20+.05,
+ fill=gray(seq(1,0,by=-.1)),cex=1.25, bty="n")

Another application is on earthquakes. It is possible to use shapefiles of tectonic plates contour, and to relate earthquakes to plates. Shapefiles can be found on http://www.colorado.edu/ (here).

First, we can extract the shapes of the tectonic plates

> plates = readShapePoly("plates.shp",
+ proj4string=CRS("+proj=longlat"))
> PP=SpatialPolygons2PolySet(plates)

Consider Montreal,

> montreal=c(-73.600,45.500)

Given that specific location, it is possible to use the following code to get the associated plate,

> PLATE.loc=function(pt){
+ K=NA
+ for(k in 1:17){
+ c=point.in.polygon(pt[1], pt[2],
+ PP[PP$PID==k,c("X")],PP[PP$PID==k,c("Y")],
+ mode.checked=FALSE)
+ if(c>0){K=k}
+ }
+ return(K)}
> abline(v=montreal[1],col="red")
> abline(h=montreal[2],col="red")
> PLATE.loc(montreal)
[1] 1

and then to plot the associated tectonic plate very easily

> PLATE=function(k0){
+ library(maps)
+ map("world")
+ polygon(PP[PP$PID==k0,c("X")],PP[PP$PID==k0,c("Y")],
+ col="red")
+ for(k in (1:17)[-k0]){polygon(PP[PP$PID==k,c("X")],
+ PP[PP$PID==k,c("Y")],col="light blue")}
+ map("world",add=TRUE)}
> PLATE(PLATE.loc(montreal))

Those code were used in the paper written with Mathieu, and that will be presented on January 30th at the Geotop seminar.