2dsphere indexes support geospatial queries on an earth-like sphere. For example, 2dsphere indexes can:
Determine points within a specified area.
Calculate proximity to a specified point.
Return exact matches on coordinate queries.
The values of the indexed field must be either:
For legacy coordinate pairs, the 2dsphere index converts the data to GeoJSON points.
To create a 2dsphere index, specify the string 2dsphere as the index
type:
db.<collection>.createIndex( { <location field> : "2dsphere" } )
Note
When creating a a 2dsphere index, the first value, or longitude, must be between -180 and 180, inclusive. The second value, or latitude, must be between -90 and 90, inclusive. These coordinates "wrap" around the sphere. For example, -179.9 and +179.9 are near neighbors.
Use Cases
Use 2dsphere indexes to query and perform calculations on location data where the data points appear on Earth, or another spherical surface. For example:
A food delivery application uses 2dsphere indexes to support searches for nearby restaurants.
A route planning application uses 2dsphere indexes to calculate the shortest distance between rest stops.
A city planner uses 2dsphere indexes to find parks that exist within city limits.
Get Started
To learn how to create and query 2dsphere indexes, see:
Details
2dsphere indexes are always sparse and have special behaviors when created as part of a compound index.
sparse Property
2dsphere indexes are always sparse. When
you create a 2dsphere index, MongoDB ignores the sparse option.
If an existing or newly inserted document does not contain a 2dsphere
index field (or the field is null or an empty array), MongoDB does
not add an entry for the document to the index.
Compound 2dsphere Indexes
For a compound index that includes a 2dsphere index key along with keys of other types, only the 2dsphere index field determines whether the index references a document.
A compound 2dsphere index can reference multiple location and non-location fields. In contrast, a compound 2d index can only reference one location field and one other field.