Why are you storing x,y in separated columns? I strongly suggest you to store them as geometry
or geography
to avoid unnecessary casting overhead in query time.
That being said, you can compute and check distances in miles using ST_DWithin
or ST_Distance
:
(Test data)
CREATE TABLE building (name text, long numeric, lat numeric);
INSERT INTO building VALUES ('Kirk Michael',-4.5896,54.2835);
INSERT INTO building VALUES ('Baldrine',-4.4077,54.2011);
INSERT INTO building VALUES ('Isle of Man Airport',-4.6283,54.0804);

ST_DWithin
ST_DWithin
returns true if the given geometries are within the specified distance from another. The following query searches for geometries that are in 5 miles radius from POINT(-4.6314 54.0887)
:
SELECT name,long,lat,
ST_Distance('POINT(-4.6314 54.0887)'::geography,
ST_MakePoint(long,lat)) * 0.000621371 AS distance
FROM building
WHERE
ST_DWithin('POINT(-4.6314 54.0887)'::geography,
ST_MakePoint(long,lat),8046.72); -- 8046.72 metres = 5 miles;
name | long | lat | distance
---------------------+---------+---------+-------------------
Isle of Man Airport | -4.6283 | 54.0804 | 0.587728347062174
(1 row)
ST_Distance
The function ST_Distance
(with geography
type parameters) will return the distance in meters. Using this function all you have to do is to convert meters to miles in the end.
Attention: Distances in queries using ST_Distance
are computed in real time and therefore do not use the spatial index. So, it is not recommended to use this function in the WHERE
clause! Use it rather in the SELECT
clause. Nevertheless the example below shows how it could be done:
SELECT name,long,lat,
ST_Distance('POINT(-4.6314 54.0887)'::geography,
ST_MakePoint(long,lat)) * 0.000621371 AS distance
FROM building
WHERE
ST_Distance('POINT(-4.6314 54.0887)'::geography,
ST_MakePoint(long,lat)) * 0.000621371 <= 5;
name | long | lat | distance
---------------------+---------+---------+-------------------
Isle of Man Airport | -4.6283 | 54.0804 | 0.587728347062174
(1 row)
- Mind the parameters order with
ST_MakePoint
: It is longitude,latitude.. not the other way around.
Demo: db<>fiddle
Amazon Athena equivalent (distance in degrees):
SELECT *, ST_DISTANCE(ST_GEOMETRY_FROM_TEXT('POINT(-84.386330 33.753746)'),
ST_POINT(long,lat)) AS distance
FROM building
WHERE
ST_Distance(ST_GEOMETRY_FROM_TEXT('POINT(-84.386330 33.753746)'),
ST_POINT(long,lat)) <= 5;