Name

ST_DistanceSpheroid — Returns the minimum distance between two lon/lat geometries using a spheroidal earth model.

Synopsis

float ST_DistanceSpheroid(geometry geomlonlatA, geometry geomlonlatB, spheroid measurement_spheroid=WGS84);

Description

Returns minimum distance in meters between two lon/lat geometries given a particular spheroid. See the explanation of spheroids given for ST_LengthSpheroid.

[Note]

This function does not look at the SRID of the geometry. It assumes the geometry coordinates are based on the provided spheroid.

Availability: 1.5 - support for other geometry types besides points was introduced. Prior versions only work with points.

Changed: 2.2.0 In prior versions this was called ST_Distance_Spheroid

Examples

Code
WITH input AS (
  SELECT ST_Centroid(
           ST_GeomFromText(
             'LINESTRING(-118.584 38.374,-118.583 38.5)', 4326
           )
         ) AS source,
         ST_GeomFromText('POINT(-118 38)', 4326) AS target
)
SELECT round(
         ST_DistanceSpheroid(
           source,
           target,
           'SPHEROID["WGS 84",6378137,298.257223563]'
         )::numeric,
         2
       ) AS dist_meters_spheroid,
       round(ST_DistanceSphere(source, target)::numeric, 2)
         AS dist_meters_sphere,
       round(
         ST_Distance(
           ST_Transform(source, 32611),
           ST_Transform(target, 32611)
         )::numeric,
         2
       ) AS dist_utm11_meters
FROM input;
Output
 dist_meters_spheroid | dist_meters_sphere | dist_utm11_meters
----------------------+--------------------+-------------------
             70454.92 |           70424.71 |          70438.00
Figure
Geometry figure for visual-st-distance-spheroid-01