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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T16:01:42+00:00

I’m creating an MySQL call using PHP, I’m calculating distance using the haversine forumula:

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I’m creating an MySQL call using PHP, I’m calculating distance using the haversine forumula:

SELECT name, id,
   (6371 * acos(cos(radians(' . $lat . ')) 
   * cos(radians(geoname.latitude)) 
   * cos(radians(geoname.longitude) - radians(' . $lon . ')) 
   + sin(radians(' . $lat . ')) 
   * sin(radians(geoname.latitude)))) AS distance

My question is; is it best to do all this calculation in SQL? This query searches a table with around 1000 records. Would it be more efficient to do some of the math in PHP rather than SQL? Is there a better way to optimise this query?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You’re using the Spherical Law of Cosines formula, not the Haversine Formula (which is slightly slower).

    Doing the math in MySQL will probably be much faster, I advise you to read this question I asked a while back, as for speed optimizations you should definitely read the excellent Geo Proximity Search with MySQL paper, pay special attention to pages 8-14 and 19.

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