Geo Point Type

Mapper type called geo_point to support geo based points. The declaration looks as follows:

{
    "pin" : {
        "properties" : {
            "location" : {
                "type" : "geo_point"
            }
        }
    }
}

Indexed Fields

The geo_point mapping will index a single field with the format of lat,lon. The lat_lon option can be set to also index the .lat and .lon as numeric fields, and geohash can be set to true to also index .geohash value.

A good practice is to enable indexing lat_lon as well, since both the geo distance and bounding box filters can either be executed using in memory checks, or using the indexed lat lon values, and it really depends on the data set which one performs better. Note though, that indexed lat lon only make sense when there is a single geo point value for the field, and not multi values.

Input Structure

The above mapping defines a geo_point, which accepts different formats. The following formats are supported:

Lat Lon as Properties

{
    "pin" : {
        "location" : {
            "lat" : 41.12,
            "lon" : -71.34
        }
    }
}

Lat Lon as String

Format in lat,lon.

{
    "pin" : {
        "location" : "41.12,-71.34"
    }
}

Geohash

{
    "pin" : {
        "location" : "drm3btev3e86"
    }
}

Lat Lon as Array

Format in [lon, lat], note, the order of lon/lat here in order to conform with GeoJSON.

{
    "pin" : {
        "location" : [-71.34, 41.12]
    }
}

Mapping Options

Option	Description
lat_lon	Set to true to also index the .lat and .lon as fields. Defaults to false.
geohash	Set to true to also index the .geohash as a field. Defaults to false.
geohash_precision	Sets the geohash precision, defaults to 12.

Usage in Scripts

When using doc[geo_field_name] (in the above mapping, doc[‘location’]), the doc[...].value returns a GeoPoint, which then allows access to lat and lon (for example, doc[...].value.lat). For performance, it is better to access the lat and lon directly using doc[...].lat and doc[...].lon.