Alias

Distance

Description

Returns the shortest distance between two geometries. It is calculated in 2d. The resulting distance will be in the units of the incoming geometries.

	This function supports GeometryCollections

Coordinate Dimensions

2D	3D	M

Spatial Standards Support

Examples

SELECT ST_Distance(ga,gb) from (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POINT(5 4 2 8)') as ga, ST_GeomFromText('POINT(8 6 10 2)') as gb) as foo;
--Result
3.605551275463989

SELECT ST_Distance(ga,gb) from 
 (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POLYGON ((10 30, 0 10, 30 20, 30 30, 20 40, 10 30))') as ga, 
         ST_GeomFromText('GEOMETRYCOLLECTION (POINT (40 30), LINESTRING (50 40, 70 20, 70 10, 70 10, 70 10))') as gb) as foo;
--Result
10.0

--Distance Barcelona-Paris degrees
SELECT ST_Distance(Barcelona,Paris) as Dist_degrees from (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POINT(2.183333 41.383333)',4326) as Barcelona, 
       ST_GeomFromText('POINT(2.350833 48.856667)',4326) as Paris) as foo;
   dist_degrees
------------------
 7.47521085492282


--Distance Barcelona-Paris meters (SRID 25831 UTM ETRS89 H31)
SELECT ST_Distance(ST_Transform(Barcelona,25831),ST_Transform(Paris,25831)) as Dist_UTM
from (SELECT ST_GeomFromText('POINT(2.183333 41.383333)',4326) as Barcelona, 
       ST_GeomFromText('POINT(2.350833 48.856667)',4326) as Paris) as foo;

     dist_utm
------------------
 830348.883136392

Related functions

ST_Distance_Sphere,ST_Distance_Spheroid