Summary: ArcView shape files and GeoBUGS

Thanks to you all for prompt replies!

As evident from the replies pasted below there are different solutions to 
this problem.

cheers,
Tord

Thanks for a very full summary, keeping the threaded information together. 
Just two more comments - the next release of maptools will also have a 
readSplus() function contributed by Virgilio G?mez Rubio to read maps 
exported from WinBUGS into a SpatialPolygons object. Also, if the goal is 
to create spatial weights in WinBUGS, you can export listw and nb objects 
from spdep using listw2WB() and nb2WB(), maybe removing the need for 
importing the map, having created the weights using one of the variants 
in spdep.

Roger

Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 95 43
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no