ggplot and label: How to shift the text outside?

Question

I'm trying to draw map. Is there a way to write the name of the cities outside their borders? Looking for an answer i've found the package ggrepel, but it seems that it has not been implemented also for geographical maps, indeed if I write

right_join(prov2022, dataset, by = "COD_PROV") %>% 
  ggplot(aes(fill = `real wage`))+
  geom_sf(data = ~ subset(., COD_REG == 7 | COD_REG >= 1  & COD_REG <= 3)) +
  theme_void() +
  theme(legend.title=element_blank())+
  geom_sf_text(data = ~ subset(., COD_REG == 7 ), aes(label = city_name), size = 3) +
  scale_fill_gradientn(colors = c( "#FFFFFF","#FFFF00", "#FF0000", "#000000")) +
  geom_blank()+
  geom_sf_text_repel(aes(label = city_name))

R answers

Error in geom_sf_text_repel(aes(label = city_name)) : 
  could not find function "geom_sf_text_repel"

Do you know any other way shift the label city_name from within the borders to the outside ?

Answer 1

You can use nudge_x and nudge_y inside geom_sf_text to move the labels an arbitrary amount:

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(df) +
  geom_sf(fill = "white") +
  geom_sf_text(aes(label = lab), size = 5, nudge_x = 0.05, nudge_y = 0.05)

If you prefer to control the exact position of each label, these parameters take vectorized inputs:

ggplot(df) +
  geom_sf(fill = "white") +
  geom_sf_text(aes(label = lab), size = 5, 
               nudge_x = c(0, -0.05, 0.05), 
               nudge_y = c(0, -0.05, 0.05))

---

Data used

library(sf)

df <- st_polygon(list(cbind(c(0, 1, 1, 0, 0), c(0, 0, 1, 1, 0)))) |>
  list(st_point(c(0.25, 0.25)), st_point(c(0.75, 0.75))) |>
  st_sfc(crs = "WGS84") |>
  st_as_sf() |>
  within(lab <- c("", "City 1", "City 2"))