[SOLVED] Which Model Field to use in Django to store longitude and latitude values?

Which Model Field to use in Django to store longitude and latitude values?

I want to store my users location using longitude and latitude, at the moment this comes from Google Maps, but I will be using GeoDango and some point to work out distances between to points also.

However, my first confusion is which field in Django I should be using to store the longitude and latitude values? The information I'm getting is conflicting.

The official documentation uses a FloatField https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/gis/tutorial/#geographic-models

lon = models.FloatField()
lat = models.FloatField()

Where almost every answer on stackoverflow shows a DecimalField

long = models.DecimalField(max_digits=8, decimal_places=3)
lat = models.DecimalField(max_digits=8, decimal_places=3)

So what should I be using?

Solution

Float is generally an approximation, see here for some simple examples. You could get very nice results modifying your model to something like DecimalField(max_digits=9, decimal_places=6), since decimals are very important in coordinates but using more than 6 is basically meaningless.