Work code - see the slides for the final code.

cf.  - https://r-spatial.org/r/2018/10/25/ggplot2-sf.html - https://paleolimbot.github.io/ggspatial/

ggplot does ok.

library(tidyverse)

## -- Attaching packages --------------------------------------- tidyverse 1.3.1 --

## v ggplot2 3.3.5     v purrr   0.3.4
## v tibble  3.1.6     v dplyr   1.0.7
## v tidyr   1.1.4     v stringr 1.4.0
## v readr   2.1.0     v forcats 0.5.1

## -- Conflicts ------------------------------------------ tidyverse_conflicts() --
## x dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
## x dplyr::lag()    masks stats::lag()

library(sf)

## Linking to GEOS 3.9.1, GDAL 3.2.1, PROJ 7.2.1; sf_use_s2() is TRUE

library(rnaturalearth)
library(rnaturalearthdata)

world <- ne_countries(scale = "medium", returnclass = "sf")

world %>%
  ggplot() +
    geom_sf() +
    coord_sf(xlim = c(-102.15, -74.12), ylim = c(7.65, 33.97))

ggspatial adds ggplot-compatible mapping features.

library(ggspatial)

plot(world$geometry)

# world_points <- cbind(world, st_coordinates(st_centroid(world$geometry)))

world %>%
  ggplot() +
    geom_sf() +
    coord_sf(xlim = c(-102.15, -74.12), ylim = c(7.65, 33.97)) +
    annotation_scale(location = "bl", width_hint = 0.5) +
    annotation_north_arrow(location = "tr") +
    annotate(geom = "text", x = -90, y = 26, label = "Gulf of Mexico", 
             fontface = "italic", color = "grey22", size = 5)

## Scale on map varies by more than 10%, scale bar may be inaccurate

    # geom_text(data = world_points, aes(x=X, y=Y, label=name),
    #           color = "darkblue", fontface = "bold", check_overlap = FALSE)

cities <- data.frame(
  x = c(-63.58595, 116.41214), 
  y = c(44.64862, 40.19063), 
  city = c("Halifax", "Beijing")
)

ggplot(cities, aes(x, y)) +
  annotation_map_tile(type = "stamenwatercolor") +
  geom_spatial_point() +
  geom_spatial_label_repel(aes(label = city), box.padding = 1) +
  coord_sf(crs = 3995)

## Assuming `crs = 4326` in stat_spatial_identity()
## Assuming `crs = 4326` in stat_spatial_identity()

## Loading required namespace: raster

## Zoom: 1