plot of states in southwest US using rnaturalearth and sf packages based on https://www.r-spatial.org/r/2018/10/25/ggplot2-sf.html

southwest_usa.R

library(rnaturalearth)
library(rnaturalearthdata)
devtools::install_github('ropensci/rnaturalearthhires')
library(rnaturalearthhires)
library(ggspatial)
usa_states <- ne_states(country = 'United States of America', returnclass = 'sf')

state_points <- data.frame(state = usa_states$name,
                      st_coordinates(st_centroid(usa_states$geometry)))

ggplot(data = usa_states) + 
  geom_sf(fill= "antiquewhite") + 
  geom_text(data = state_points,
            aes(x = X, y = Y, label = state), color = "darkblue", fontface = "bold", check_overlap = FALSE) + 
  annotate(geom = "text", x = -90, y = 26, label = "Gulf of Mexico", fontface = "italic", color = "grey22", size = 6) +
  annotation_scale(location = "bl", width_hint = 0.5) + 
  annotation_north_arrow(location = "bl", which_north = "true", pad_x = unit(0.75, "in"), pad_y = unit(0.5, "in"), style = north_arrow_fancy_orienteering) + 
  coord_sf(xlim = c(-125, -105), ylim = c(30, 40), expand = FALSE) + 
  xlab("Longitude") + 
  ylab("Latitude") + 
  ggtitle("Southwest US") + 
  theme(panel.grid.major = element_line(color = gray(.5), linetype = "dashed", size = 0.5), panel.background = element_rect(fill = "aliceblue"))