Script that takes a .shp file as an input and outputs a dataframe with the polygon information.

shapeToDf.R

# process shapefile data
library(rgdal) # requires sp, will use proj.4 if installed
library(gpclib)
library(maptools)
library(ggplot2)
library(plyr)

gpclibPermit()
shpToDf <- function(directory, layer) {
  map <- readOGR(dsn=directory, layer=layer)
  map@data$id <- rownames(map@data)
  map.points <- fortify(map, region = "id")
  map.df <- join(map.points, map@data, by = "id")
}

df <- shpToDf("[Directory]", "[Filename without .shp suffix]")
saveRDS(df, "map_shape.rds")