Chapter 135. Supported Spatial Data Formats

Table of Contents

Well-Known Text (WKT) Format
Well-Known Binary (WKB) Format

This section describes the standard spatial data formats that are used to represent geometry objects in queries. They are:

Internally, MySQL stores geometry values in a format that is not identical to either WKT or WKB format.

Well-Known Text (WKT) Format

The Well-Known Text (WKT) representation of Geometry is designed to exchange geometry data in ASCII form.

Examples of WKT representations of geometry objects are:

  • A Point:

      POINT(15 20)
      

    Note that point coordinates are specified with no separating comma.

  • A LineString with four points:

      LINESTRING(0 0, 10 10, 20 25, 50 60)
      
  • A Polygon with one exterior ring and one interior ring:

      POLYGON((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0),(5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5))
      
  • A MultiPoint with three Point values:

      MULTIPOINT(0 0, 20 20, 60 60)
      
  • A MultiLineString with two LineString values:

      MULTILINESTRING((10 10, 20 20), (15 15, 30 15))
      
  • A MultiPolygon with two Polygon values:

      MULTIPOLYGON(((0 0,10 0,10 10,0 10,0 0)),((5 5,7 5,7 7,5 7, 5 5)))
      
  • A GeometryCollection consisting of two Point values and one LineString:

      GEOMETRYCOLLECTION(POINT(10 10), POINT(30 30), LINESTRING(15 15, 20 20))
      

A Backus-Naur grammar that specifies the formal production rules for writing WKT values may be found in the OGC specification document referenced near the beginning of this chapter.