When you create the MySQL table, you want to pay particular attention to the lat and lng attributes. With the current zoom capabilities of Google Maps, you should only need 6 digits of precision after the decimal. To keep the storage space required for your table at a minimum, you can specify that the lat and lng attributes are floats of size (10,6). That will let the fields store 6 digits after the decimal, plus up to 4 digits before the decimal, e.g. -123.456789 degrees. Your table should also have an id attribute to serve as the primary key.
CREATE TABLE `markers` (
`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY ,
`name` VARCHAR( 60 ) NOT NULL ,
`address` VARCHAR( 80 ) NOT NULL ,
`lat` FLOAT( 10, 6 ) NOT NULL ,
`lng` FLOAT( 10, 6 ) NOT NULL
) ENGINE = MYISAM ;
After creating the table, it's time to populate it with data. The sample data provided below is for about 180 pizzarias scattered across the United States. In phpMyAdmin, you can use the IMPORT tab to import various file formats, including CSV (comma-separated values). Microsoft Excel and Google Spreadsheets both export to CSV format, so you can easily transfer data from spreadsheets to MySQL tables through exporting/importing CSV files.
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Frankie Johnnie & Luigo Too','939 W El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA','37.386339','-122.085823');
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Amici\'s East Coast Pizzeria','790 Castro St, Mountain View, CA','37.38714','-122.083235');
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Kapp\'s Pizza Bar & Grill','191 Castro St, Mountain View, CA','37.393885','-122.078916');
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Round Table Pizza: Mountain View','570 N Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA','37.402653','-122.079354');
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Tony & Alba\'s Pizza & Pasta','619 Escuela Ave, Mountain View, CA','37.394011','-122.095528');
INSERT INTO `markers` (`name`, `address`, `lat`, `lng`) VALUES ('Oregano\'s Wood-Fired Pizza','4546 El Camino Real, Los Altos, CA','37.401724','-122.114646');
To find locations in your markers table that are within a certain radius distance of a given latitude/longitude, you can use a SELECT statement based on the Haversine formula. The Haversine formula is used generally for computing great-circle distances between two pairs of coordinates on a sphere. An in-depth mathemetical explanation is given by Wikipedia and a good discussion of the formula as it relates to programming is on Movable Type's site.
Here's the SQL statement that will find the closest 20 locations that are within a radius of 25 miles to the 37, -122 coordinate. It calculates the distance based on the latitude/longitude of that row and the target latitude/longitude, and then asks for only rows where the distance value is less than 25, orders the whole query by distance, and limits it to 20 results. To search by kilometers instead of miles, replace 3959 with 6371.
SELECT
id,
(
3959 *
acos(cos(radians(37)) *
cos(radians(lat)) *
cos(radians(lng) -
radians(-122)) +
sin(radians(37)) *
sin(radians(lat )))
) AS distance
FROM markers
HAVING distance < 28
ORDER BY distance LIMIT 0, 20;
This one is to find latitudes and longitudes in a distance less than 28 miles.
Another one is to find them in a distance between 28 and 29 miles:
SELECT
id,
(
3959 *
acos(cos(radians(37)) *
cos(radians(lat)) *
cos(radians(lng) -
radians(-122)) +
sin(radians(37)) *
sin(radians(lat )))
) AS distance
FROM markers
HAVING distance < 29 and distance > 28
ORDER BY distance LIMIT 0, 20;
https://developers.google.com/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch_v3#creating-the-map