Question

Options

$lat = '25.7742658';
$lng = '-80.1936589';
$miles = 30;

Query

SELECT *, 
   ( 3959 * acos( cos( radians($lat) ) 
   * cos( radians( lat ) ) 
   * cos( radians( lng ) - radians($lng) ) 
   + sin( radians($lat) ) 
   * sin( radians( lat ) ) ) ) AS distance 
FROM locations 
HAVING distance < $miles 
ORDER BY distance 
LIMIT 0, 20

I have a database table with 4 columns:

• unique id
• city name
• latitude (lat)
• longitude (lng)

I’m using the query on top to return locations that are within a specified number of miles from the specified coordinates. It seems to work but I’m not sure how accurate it is. I’m curios to know whether the query is good or if you have a better solution.

Answer 1

that looks like the correct great circle distance query.

what are you concerned with wrt accuracy?