> library(sp)
> library(raster)
> library(ecomore)

Downloading the 2009 GlobCover data (** 300-m resolution**) from ESA:

> if (! dir.exists("data-raw")) dir.create("data-raw")
> download.file("http://due.esrin.esa.int/files/Globcover2009_V2.3_Global_.zip", "data-raw/Globcover2009_V2.3.zip")
> download.file("http://due.esrin.esa.int/files/Globcover_V2.2_Global.zip", "data-raw/Globcover2005_V2.2.zip")

Unzipping:

> unzip("data-raw/Globcover2009_V2.3.zip", exdir = "data-raw/Glocover2009_V2.3")
> unzip("data-raw/Globcover2005_V2.2.zip", exdir = "data-raw/Glocover2005_V2.2")

Loading:

> Globcover2009_V2.3 <- raster("data-raw/Glocover2009_V2.3/GLOBCOVER_L4_200901_200912_V2.3.tif")
> Globcover2005_V2.2 <- raster("data-raw/Glocover2005_V2.2/GLOBCOVER_200412_200606_V2.2_Global_CLA.tif")

Loading the Lao provinces polygons from GADM:

> if (! file.exists("gadm36_LAO_1_sp.rds"))
+   download.file("https://biogeo.ucdavis.edu/data/gadm3.6/Rsp/gadm36_LAO_1_sp.rds", "data-raw/gadm36_LAO_1_sp.rds")
> gadm36_LAO_1 <- readRDS("data-raw/gadm36_LAO_1_sp.rds")

Selecting the polygon of Vientiane:

> vientiane <- gadm36_LAO_1[gadm36_LAO_1$NAME_1 == "Vientiane [prefecture]", ]

Cropping:

> Globcover2009_V2.3 <- crop_raster(Globcover2009_V2.3, vientiane)
> Globcover2005_V2.2 <- crop_raster(Globcover2005_V2.2, vientiane)

Saving to disk:

> if (! dir.exists("data")) dir.create("data")
> writeRaster(Globcover2009_V2.3, "data/Globcover2009_V2.3.tif", "GTiff", overwrite = TRUE)
> writeRaster(Globcover2005_V2.2, "data/Globcover2005_V2.2.tif", "GTiff", overwrite = TRUE)