Question

I’m trying to generate some dummy records in MySQL and need to create random latitude and longitude float values within a given range.

For example I need to generate latitudes that are between 52.077090052913654 and 52.477040512464626

and longitudes between -1.8840792500000134 and -0.9172823750000134

I’m familiar with creating ranges of random numbers using Rand Floor but that will only produce whole numbers. How I might do this?

Answer 1

You can use RAND() to get a random value between two values like so:

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randVal = (RAND() * (maxVal - minVal)) + minVal

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With your numbers:

SELECT 
    (RAND() * (52.477040512464626 - 52.077090052913654)) + 52.077090052913654 AS randlatitude,
    (RAND() * (-0.9172823750000134 - -1.8840792500000134)) + -1.8840792500000134 AS randlongitude