Distance Between Two Locations

**Zan03** · 05-04-2010, 01:37 PM

I have 2000 building addresses throughout Toronto. I've created geographic areas and need to figure out how many buildings fit into each geographic area... I'm not exactly sure the best way to do this...

One way is to figure out the equation for finding the distance between two points, given the latitude and longitude of both locations. For example: what
is the formula one would use to find the distance between Building 1 (43.1556978 latitude, -79.2123856 longitude) and Building 2(43.6639513 latitude, 79.3836226 longitude.)?

But i'm looking for a faster way to sort the buildings, but area...

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

**hitchface** · 05-04-2010, 02:02 PM

Couldn't you just set up a grid of lat/long coordinates and determine which block the building is in? Simplified, but here is the thinking. You have a 4x4 grid, so 16 possible geographic blocks the buildings could be in. If a building's lat/long is "1,1", it is in the first block. Just determine the overall area you are trying to cover, and split up the 'map' into a grid that works for you.

**DP978** · 05-04-2010, 02:23 PM

The distance between two points formula is -

= Sqrt ( (x2 - x1) ^ 2 + (y2 - y1) ^ 2)

Edit: So the square root of (Lat 1 - Lat 2 sqaured plus Long 1 - Long 2 squared)