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

1. Latitudes range from -90 to +90 (degrees), so DECIMAL(10, 8) is ok for that

2. longitudes range from -180 to +180 (degrees) so you need DECIMAL(11, 8).

Note: The first number is the total number of digits stored, and the second is the number after the decimal point.

In short: lat DECIMAL(10, 8) NOT NULL, lng DECIMAL(11, 8) NOT NULL