13.4.6 Creating Spatial Columns

MySQL provides a standard way of creating spatial columns for geometry types, for example, with CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE. Spatial columns are supported for MyISAM, InnoDB, NDB, and ARCHIVE tables. See also the notes about spatial indexes under Section 13.4.10, “Creating Spatial Indexes”.

Columns with a spatial data type can have an SRID attribute, to explicitly indicate the spatial reference system (SRS) for values stored in the column. For implications of an SRID-restricted column, see Section 13.4.1, “Spatial Data Types”.

• Use the CREATE TABLE statement to create a table with a spatial column:

  CREATE TABLE geom (g GEOMETRY);

• Use the ALTER TABLE statement to add or drop a spatial column to or from an existing table:

  ALTER TABLE geom ADD pt POINT;
  ALTER TABLE geom DROP pt;