Try the commented and reproducible example below! I use the `sf` package because is much faster than `rgdal` to open *Shapefiles*. Also, I used the great package `mapview` for interactive visualization in `R`. I transformed the points object to polygon's default projection before doing the intersection. **Note:** I downloaded the *Points.csv* file from Dropbox link first and saved it to working directory. # Load libraries ---------------------------------------------------------- library('sf') library('mapview') # Download data ----------------------------------------------------------- # Download polygon download.file("http://mapas.ine.pt/download/files/2011/nuts2/lisboa2011.zip", destfile = "lisboa2011.zip") unzip("lisboa2011.zip") # Load data --------------------------------------------------------------- polygons <- sf::read_sf("BGRI11_LISBOA.shp") points <- read.csv(file = "Points.csv", sep = ";") # Convert points df to sf object points <- st_as_sf(points, coords = c("lon", "lat")) st_crs(points) <- "+init=epsg:4326 +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs +towgs84=0,0,0" # assign CRS to points # Plot data mapview::mapview(polygons, zcol = "DTMN11") + mapview::mapview(points, color = "white", col.regions = "black") [![plot][1]][1] # Overlay Population with BGRI subsections -------------------------------- # Transform points data pointsT <- st_transform(points, crs = st_crs(polygons)) print(st_crs(pointsT)) # Plot transformed data to check is ok mapview::mapview(polygons, zcol = "DTMN11") + mapview::mapview(pointsT, color = "white", col.regions = "black") # Intersection overlayOutput <- st_intersects(pointsT, polygons) # Build intersected polygons object intersectedPolys <- polygons[unlist(overlayOutput), ] mapview::mapview(polygons, zcol = "DTMN11") + mapview::mapview(pointsT, color = "white", col.regions = "black") + mapview::mapview(intersectedPolys, color = "black", col.regions = "black") [![plot2][2]][2] **Note:** the intersected polygons are colored in "black". [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/K5QQM.jpg [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/md0Nu.jpg