Convert (long,lat) pairs into state names

convert-lat-long-to-state.R

#Code taken from SO
#http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8751497/latitude-longitude-coordinates-to-state-code-in-r/8751965#8751965

library(sp)
library(maps)
library(maptools)

# The single argument to this function, pointsDF, is a data.frame in which:
#   - column 1 contains the longitude in degrees (negative in the US)
#   - column 2 contains the latitude in degrees

latlong2state <- function(pointsDF) {
    # Prepare SpatialPolygons object with one SpatialPolygon
    # per state (plus DC, minus HI & AK)
    states <- map('state', fill=TRUE, col="transparent", plot=FALSE)
    IDs <- sapply(strsplit(states$names, ":"), function(x) x[1])
    states_sp <- map2SpatialPolygons(states, IDs=IDs,
                     proj4string=CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=wgs84"))

    # Convert pointsDF to a SpatialPoints object 
    pointsSP <- SpatialPoints(pointsDF, 
                    proj4string=CRS("+proj=longlat +datum=wgs84"))

    # Use 'over' to get _indices_ of the Polygons object containing each point 
    indices <- over(pointsSP, states_sp)

    # Return the state names of the Polygons object containing each point
    stateNames <- sapply(states_sp@polygons, function(x) x@ID)
    stateNames[indices]
}