What is the ideal data type to use when storing latitude / longitude in a MySQL database?

Question

Bearing in mind that I\'ll be performing calculations on lat / long pairs, what datatype is best suited for use with a MySQL database?

Answer 1

We store latitude/longitude X 1,000,000 in our oracle database as NUMBERS to avoid round off errors with doubles.

Given that latitude/longitude to the 6th decimal place was 10 cm accuracy that was all we needed. Many other databases also store lat/long to the 6th decimal place.