Fastest Way to Find Distance Between Two Lat/Long Points

Question

I currently have just under a million locations in a mysql database all with longitude and latitude information.

I am trying to find the distance between one point a

Answer 1

Here is a very detailed description of Geo Distance Search with MySQL a solution based on implementation of Haversine Formula to mysql. The complete solution description with theory, implementation and further performance optimization. Although the spatial optimization part didn't work correct in my case. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2569355/Geo-Distance-Search-with-MySQL