Use geo queries

Use geospatial queries in MongoDB compatible operations to query documents that exist within a certain range from a specific longitude and latitude.

Before you begin

  1. Ensure that you have access to an existing MongoDB compatible operations database, or Create a database and connect to it.

  2. Ensure that you have at least one 2dsphere index, or Create a 2dsphere index.

GeoJSON objects

To run a geospatial query against fields in your collection, the fields you query must be GeoJSON objects or GeoPoints.

You can perform a geospatial query using the $near operator, which calculates the distance of a geo point relative to geo points within documents. These documents are then sorted from nearest to farthest distance in the query results. You can also override this sort order by defining a secondary sort, other than $natural, in your query. The $near operator must exist in a document field in the query filter, and must contain a $geometry GeoJSON field.

In the following example, the $near operator is used to calculate the distance between the geo point (-122.084, 37.4221) and the geo points located in the location field of all documents in myCollection. The documents are returned and ordered by nearest to farthest distance between the two points.

  db.myCollection.find({
    location: {
      $near: {
        $geometry: {
          type: 'Point',
          coordinates: [ -122.084, 37.4221 ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
  )

You can also use the optional $maxDistance and $minDistance fields to control the distance in meters from the point of your query. The following example shows a query where returned documents must be at least 500 meters and at most 2000 meters from the point (-122.084, 37.4221):

  db.myCollection.find({
    location: {
      $near: {
        $geometry: {
          type: 'Point',
          coordinates: [ -122.084, 37.4221 ]
        },
        $maxDistance: 2000,
        $minDistance: 500
      }
    }
  }

If your index is partitioned, then you can filter based on the partition by including the partition in an "and" equality filter within your query. For example, if you had a region partition and wanted to filter your query results by the midwest region, you could do the following:

  db.myCollection.find( { $and: [
    { location:
      { $near: {
        $geometry: {
          type: 'Point',
          coordinates: [ -122.084, 37.4221 ]
        },
      }
    },
    { "region": "midwest" }
  ] } )

The value of your partition must be a string. Your partition filter must be joined to your search query by an $and operator.

Limitations

  • $near operators and $text operators can't be used in the same the query.
  • $near can't be nested in a multi-clause $or statement unless $near is the only expression in the $or clause.
  • $near can't be used with the $not or $nor operators in a query.
  • $near isn't supported in aggregation queries.