Geodistance aggregations

The geo_distance aggregation groups documents into concentric circles based on distances from an origin geo_point field. It’s the same as the range aggregation, except that it works on geo locations.

For example, you can use the geo_distance aggregation to find all pizza places within 1 km of you. The search results are limited to the 1 km radius specified by you, but you can add another result found within 2 km.

You can only use the geo_distance aggregation on fields mapped as geo_point.

A point is a single geographical coordinate, such as your current location shown by your smart-phone. A point in OpenSearch is represented as follows:

{
  "location": {
    "type": "point",
    "coordinates": {
      "lat": 83.76,
      "lon": -81.2
    }
  }
}

You can also specify the latitude and longitude as an array [-81.20, 83.76] or as a string "83.76, -81.20"

This table lists the relevant fields of a geo_distance aggregation:

Field	Description	Required
`field`	Specify the geopoint field that you want to work on.	Yes
`origin`	Specify the geopoint that’s used to compute the distances from.	Yes
`ranges`	Specify a list of ranges to collect documents based on their distance from the target point.	Yes
`unit`	Define the units used in the `ranges` array. The `unit` defaults to `m` (meters), but you can switch to other units like `km` (kilometers), `mi` (miles), `in` (inches), `yd` (yards), `cm` (centimeters), and `mm` (millimeters).	No
`distance_type`	Specify how OpenSearch calculates the distance. The default is `sloppy_arc` (faster but less accurate), but can also be set to `arc` (slower but most accurate) or `plane` (fastest but least accurate). Because of high error margins, use `plane` only for small geographic areas.	No

The syntax is as follows:

{
  "aggs": {
    "aggregation_name": {
      "geo_distance": {
        "field": "field_1",
        "origin": "x, y",
        "ranges": [
          {
            "to": "value_1"
          },
          {
            "from": "value_2",
            "to": "value_3"
          },
          {
            "from": "value_4"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

This example forms buckets from the following distances from a geo-point field:

Fewer than 10 km
From 10 to 20 km
From 20 to 50 km
From 50 to 100 km
Above 100 km

GET opensearch_dashboards_sample_data_logs/_search
{
  "size": 0,
  "aggs": {
    "position": {
      "geo_distance": {
        "field": "geo.coordinates",
        "origin": {
          "lat": 83.76,
          "lon": -81.2
        },
        "ranges": [
          {
            "to": 10
          },
          {
            "from": 10,
            "to": 20
          },
          {
            "from": 20,
            "to": 50
          },
          {
            "from": 50,
            "to": 100
          },
          {
            "from": 100
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

copy

Example response

...
"aggregations" : {
  "position" : {
    "buckets" : [
      {
        "key" : "*-10.0",
        "from" : 0.0,
        "to" : 10.0,
        "doc_count" : 0
      },
      {
        "key" : "10.0-20.0",
        "from" : 10.0,
        "to" : 20.0,
        "doc_count" : 0
      },
      {
        "key" : "20.0-50.0",
        "from" : 20.0,
        "to" : 50.0,
        "doc_count" : 0
      },
      {
        "key" : "50.0-100.0",
        "from" : 50.0,
        "to" : 100.0,
        "doc_count" : 0
      },
      {
        "key" : "100.0-*",
        "from" : 100.0,
        "doc_count" : 14074
      }
    ]
  }
 }
}