PostGIS


PostGIS is an open source software program that adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL object-relational database. PostGIS follows the Simple Features for SQL specification from the Open Geospatial Consortium.
Technically PostGIS was implemented as a PostgreSQL external extension.

Features

The PostGIS implementation is based on "light-weight" geometries and indexes optimized to reduce disk and memory footprint. Using light-weight geometries helps servers increase the amount of data migrated up from physical disk storage into RAM, improving query performance substantially.
PostGIS is registered as "implements the specified standard" for "Simple Features for SQL" by the OGC. PostGIS has not been certified as compliant by the OGC.

History

Refractions Research released the first version of PostGIS in 2001 under the GNU General Public License. After six release candidates, a stable "1.0" version followed on April 19, 2005.
In 2006 the OGC registered PostGIS as "implement the specified standard" for "Simple Features for SQL".
ReleaseFirst releaseLatest minor versionLatest release
1.02005-04-192005-12-06
1.12005-12-212007-01-31
1.22006-12-082007-01-11
1.32007-08-092009-05-06
1.42009-07-242010-03-11
1.52010-02-042012-11-15
2.02012-04-032015-04-06
2.12013-08-172017-09-19
2.22015-10-072018-11-22
2.32016-09-262019-08-11
2.42017-09-302019-08-11
2.52018-09-232020-02-28
3.02019-10-202020-02-20
3.12020-102020-02-02

Users

Many software products can use PostGIS as a database backend, including: