Question

We want to store positions of objects on a map in a database. Queries on these positions would include which country or state it is in or get all withing a radius, etc.

Do we need to utilize spatial data in the databases? If spatial data would make our app faster, can it work with entity framework?

If not, then we’ll just use the latitude and longitude.

Answer 1

Maybe for your purposes something small like an R-tree module would work? SQLite has a R-tree module build in, and what it does is perform very fast comparisons on rectangles/points. For example, R-tree could boost performance on a query like “is point x in rectangle y?” Look here for more info http://www.sqlite.org/rtree.html