Choropleth maps with Highcharts and Shiny

We use Choropleth maps to show differences in colors or shading of pre-defined regions like states or countries, which correspond to differences in quantitative values like total rainfall, average temperature, economic indicators etc



In our case we will use sales of a toy making company, as quantitative value, in different countries around the world. See example with this shiny app



Highcharter is a R wrapper for Highcharts javascript based charting  modules.

Rendering Choropleth Maps with Highcharts in Shiny

• To see Highcharts/Shiny interaction, we will begin by creating basic Shiny dashboard layout: It contains a single select widget and single tab for displaying map.

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• In server function, filtering and summarize data with dplyr library and create a reactive object

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Here we used library countrycode to convert long country names into one of many coding schemes. Adding new column iso3 in the summarized data with mutate function.

• Passing reactive object in renderHighchart function. Customizing tooltip and sub-title content with reactive widgets.

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Dataset and shiny R file can be downloaded from here