Spatial indexes
One of the defining characteristics of a spatial database is the ability to create and use "spatial" indexes to speed up geometry-based searches. These indexes are used to perform spatial operations, such as identifying all the features that lie within a given bounding box, identifying all the features within a certain distance of a given point, or identifying all the features that intersect with a given polygon.
Spatial indexes are one of the most powerful features of spatial databases, and it is worth spending a moment becoming familiar with how they work. Spatial indexes don't store the geometry directly; instead, they calculate the bounding box for each geometry and then index the geometries based on their bounding boxes. This ...
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