Designing and working with Spatial data type in SQL 2008

One of the interesting feature of SQL 2008 that had my eye balls rolling was the introduction of Spatial data type/Column.

SQL Server 2008 and later versions support spatial data. This includes support for a planar spatial data type, geometry, which supports geometric data—points, lines, and polygons—within a Euclidean coordinate system. The geography data type represents geographic objects on an area on the Earth's surface, such as a spread of land. A spatial index on a geography column maps the geographic data to a two-dimensional, non-Euclidean space.

A spatial index is defined on a table column that contains spatial data (a spatial column). Each spatial index refers to a finite space. For example, an index for a geometry column refers to a user-specified rectangular area on a plane.

Here's more to it on msdn - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb964712(SQL.100).aspx

Here's all that you wanted to know on designing and working with Spatial data type in SQL 2008 - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933790(SQL.100).aspx