Introduction

The Latamverse is a metapackage that brings together a comprehensive collection of R packages providing access to APIs functions and curated datasets from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. It integrates both real-time and historical data retrieved through public RESTful APIs, such as Nager.Date, World Bank API, and REST Countries API, while also offering extensive curated collections of open datasets covering economics, demographics, public health, environmental data, political indicators, social metrics, and cultural information.

The Latamverse package installs and attaches five core subpackages. The first is ArgentinAPI, which provides APIs functions and curated datasets for Argentina, including resources on exchange rates, inflation, political figures, and national holidays. The second is BrazilDataAPI, which offers APIs functions and curated datasets for Brazil, with data on postal codes, banks, economic indicators, holidays, and company registrations. The third is ChileDataAPI, focused on Chile, covering financial indicators such as UF, UTM, Dollar, Euro, Yen, Copper, Bitcoin, the IPSA index, and national holidays. The fourth is ColombiAPI, which provides APIs functions and curated datasets for Colombia, featuring geographic locations, cultural attractions, economic indicators, demographic data, and national holidays. Finally, PeruAPIs offers APIs functions and curated datasets for Peru, covering economic indicators, demographics, national holidays, administrative divisions, electoral data, and biodiversity.

Installation

To install the Latamverse package, use the following:


# Install from CRAN 

install.packages("Latamverse")

# Then load the package:

library(Latamverse)

Using the Latamverse() Function

Once the package is loaded, you can call the Latamverse() function to display the list of included packages and their versions:


Latamverse()

Important Note on Detaching Packages

Latamverse imports and depends on several subpackages. Therefore, you cannot detach an individual subpackage (like PeruAPIs) while Latamverse is still loaded.

Example of an Error


# This will raise an error

detach("package:PeruAPIs", unload = TRUE)

Correct Way to Detach

To properly unload a subpackage, you must first detach Latamverse:


# First detach the metapackage
detach("package:Latamverse", unload = TRUE)

# Now you can safely detach the subpackage
detach("package:PeruAPIs", unload = TRUE)

By installing the Latamverse package this will attach the following packages to your R session:

ArgentinAPI
BrazilDataAPI
ChileDataAPI
ColombiAPI
PeruAPIs

Included Packages in the Latamverse

ArgentinAPI

The ArgentinAPI package provides a comprehensive and unified interface to access open data about Argentina from multiple public RESTful APIs, including ArgentinaDatos API, REST Countries API, and World Bank API. Through these sources, users can easily retrieve information on exchange rates, inflation, political figures, national holidays, economic indicators, and general country-level statistics.

In addition to API-access functions, the package includes a collection of curated datasets covering diverse domains such as economic indicators, biodiversity, agriculture, human rights, genetic data, and consumer prices.

Some ArgentinAPI Functions

get_dollar_exchange_rates() – Retrieves the most recent exchange rates for different dollar markets (official, blue, MEP, CCL) from the ArgentinaDatos API.
get_presidential_events() – Retrieves a list of official presidential events from the ArgentinaDatos API.
get_argentina_child_mortality(): Get Argentina’s Under-5 Mortality Rate data from the World Bank.

Some ArgentinAPI Datasets

corn_nitrogen_df: Argentina Corn Yield & Nitrogen Data A data frame with yield monitor data from a corn field in Argentina, including variables such as nitrogen application, yield, topography, and block replicates.
STRs_argentina_list: STRs Allelic Frequencies from Argentina A list of allelic frequencies for 24 Short Tandem Repeat (STR) genetic markers collected from different populations across Argentina.

BrazilDataAPI

The BrazilDataAPI package provides a unified interface to access open data from the BrasilAPI, REST Countries API, Nager.Date API, and World Bank API, with a focus on Brazil. It allows users to easily retrieve up-to-date information on postal codes, banks, economic indicators, holidays, company registrations, international country-level data, public holidays information, and economic development data relevant to Brazil.

In addition to API-access functions, the package includes a collection of curated datasets related to Brazil, covering diverse domains such as demographics (male and female population by state and year), river levels in Manaus, environmental emission factors in São Paulo, Brazilian film festivals, and historical yellow fever outbreaks.

Some BrazilDataAPI Functions

get_country_info_br(): Get key country information for Brazil.
get_brazil_child_mortality(): Get Brazil’s Under-5 Mortality Rate data from the World Bank.
get_brazil_cpi(): Get Brazil’s Consumer Price Index (2010 = 100) data from the World Bank.

Some BrazilDataAPI Datasets

Brasil_females_df: Brazilian Female Demographics & Mortality A data frame containing population counts and mortality information for females in Brazil, disaggregated by federal states and abridged age groups, for the years 1991 and 2000.
manaus_ts: Monthly Average Heights of the Rio Negro at Manaus A univariate time series of monthly average river heights of the Rio Negro at Manaus. The series contains 1080 observations spanning 90 years, from January 1903 to December 1992.

ChileDataAPI

The ChileDataAPI package provides a unified interface to access open data from multiple public RESTful APIs, including the FINDIC API, the REST Countries API, the World Bank API, and Nager.Date. With a focus on Chile, the package enables users to retrieve real-time or historical data such as financial indicators (UF, UTM, Dollar, Euro, Yen, Copper price per pound, Bitcoin, IPSA index), holidays, and international demographic and geopolitical information.

In addition to API-based data retrieval, ChileDataAPI includes a curated collection of datasets that cover diverse aspects of Chilean society and environment, such as human rights violations during the Pinochet regime, electoral data, census samples, health surveys, seismic events, territorial codes, and environmental measurements.

Some ChileDataAPI Functions

get_chile_utm(): Returns monthly values of the Unidad Tributaria Mensual (UTM).
get_chile_yen(): Provides the exchange rate of the Japanese Yen in CLP.
get_country_info_cl(): Get essential information about Chile or any other country by its full name

Some ChileDataAPI Datasets

census_chile_2017_df: Data frame containing microdata from the 2017 Chilean census, specifically from the commune of San Pablo. The dataset includes 7,512 observations, all variable names and data values are in Spanish.
chile_earthquakes_tbl_df: Tibble containing information about significant (perceptible) earthquakes that occurred in Chile from January 1st, 2012 to the present.

ColombiAPI

The ColombiAPI package provides a unified interface to access open data from the API-Colombia, World Bank API, Nager.Date API, and the REST Countries API, with a focus on Colombia. It allows users to retrieve up-to-date or historical information on topics such as geographic locations, cultural attractions, economic indicators, demographic data, national holidays, and key country-level details.

In addition to API-access functions, the package includes a collection of curated datasets related to Colombia. These datasets cover a wide range of topics including air quality monitoring, education (public schools), business and holiday calendars, agricultural exports (coffee), regulatory information (cannabis licenses), climate data (Medellin rainfall), and urban development (Bogota shopping malls).

Some ColombiAPI Functions

get_colombia_cpi(): Get Colombia’s Consumer Price Index (2010 = 100) from World Bank.
get_colombia_departments(): Get Colombia’s Departments from API Colombia.
get_colombia_energy_use(): Get Colombia’s Energy Use (kg of oil equivalent per capita) from World Bank.

Some ColombiAPI Datasets

Bogota_business_Date: A Date object listing official business dates in Bogota.
Colombia_coffee_tbl_df: A tibble with details of Colombian coffee export and import for the year 2016.

PeruAPIs

The PeruAPIs package provides a unified interface to access open data from the World Bank API, Nager.Date API, and the REST Countries API, with a focus on Peru. It allows users to retrieve up-to-date or historical information on topics such as economic indicators, demographics, national holidays, and key geopolitical details.

In addition to API-access functions, the package includes a curated collection of open datasets related to Peru. These datasets cover a wide range of topics including administrative divisions, electoral data, demographics, biodiversity and educational classifications.

Some PeruAPIs Functions

get_peru_literacy_rate(): Get Peru’s Adult Literacy Rate data from the World Bank.
get_peru_life_expectancy(): Get Peru’s Life Expectancy at Birth data from the World Bank.
get_peru_population(): Get Peru’s Total Population data from the World Bank.

Some PeruAPIs Datasets

andean_migrants_health_df: A data frame containing health data from a random sample of Peruvians born in the Andes mountains, but who have since migrated to lower altitudes.
birds_peru_tbl_df: A tibble containing an updated list of bird species recorded in Peru, based on the most recent taxonomic revisions by the South American.

Summary of Included Packages

Package	Domain Focus
ArgentinAPI	Provides a unified interface to access open data from ArgentinaDatos API, REST Countries API, and World Bank API, with a focus on Argentina.
BrazilDataAPI	Provides a unified interface to access open data from BrasilAPI, REST Countries API, Nager.Date API, and World Bank API, with a focus on Brazil.
ChileDataAPI	Provides a unified interface to access open data from FINDIC API, REST Countries API, Nager.Date API, and World Bank API, with a focus on Chile.
ColombiAPI	Provides a unified interface to access open data from API-Colombia, REST Countries API, Nager.Date API, and World Bank API, with a focus on Colombia.
PeruAPIs	Provides a unified interface to access open data from World Bank API, REST Countries API, and Nager.Date API, with a focus on Peru.

Conclusion

The Latamverse represents a unified entry point for accessing and analyzing data from five major Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. By combining real-time API connections with curated datasets, it simplifies the process of discovering, retrieving, and integrating diverse sources of information across key domains such as economics, demographics, public health, environment, politics, and culture.

This metapackage not only reduces the technical barriers associated with collecting data from multiple platforms but also promotes reproducible research, comparative regional studies, and data-driven teaching practices. Its modular structure, built upon country-specific packages, ensures flexibility and scalability, allowing users to focus on generating insights and advancing knowledge rather than on data wrangling.

Ultimately, the Latamverse provides researchers, educators, policymakers, and data scientists with a comprehensive ecosystem that enhances the study and understanding of Latin America, fostering collaboration and innovation within the global R community.

Latamverse: Latin American Data via RESTful APIs and Curated Datasets