Installing PostGIS

PostGIS adds geographic object support to PostgreSQL, turning it into a spatial database. GEOS, PROJ.4 and GDAL should be installed prior to building PostGIS. You might also need additional libraries, see PostGIS requirements.

On Debian/Ubuntu, you are advised to install the following packages: postgresql-x.x, postgresql-x.x-postgis, postgresql-server-dev-x.x, python-psycopg2 (x.x matching the PostgreSQL version you want to install). Please also consult platform-specific instructions if you are on Mac OS X or Windows.

Building from source

First download the source archive, and extract:

$ wget http://download.osgeo.org/postgis/source/postgis-2.1.5.tar.gz
$ tar xzf postgis-2.1.5.tar.gz
$ cd postgis-2.1.5

Next, configure, make and install PostGIS:

$ ./configure

Finally, make and install:

$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd ..

Post-installation

Creating a spatial database

PostGIS 2 includes an extension for Postgres 9.1+ that can be used to enable spatial functionality:

$ createdb  <db name>
$ psql <db name>
> CREATE EXTENSION postgis;

The database user must be a superuser in order to run CREATE EXTENSION postgis;.

GeoDjango does not currently leverage any PostGIS topology functionality. If you plan to use those features at some point, you can also install the postgis_topology extension by issuing CREATE EXTENSION postgis_topology;.

Managing the database

To administer the database, you can either use the pgAdmin III program (Start ‣ PostgreSQL 9.x ‣ pgAdmin III) or the SQL Shell (Start ‣ PostgreSQL 9.x ‣ SQL Shell). For example, to create a geodjango spatial database and user, the following may be executed from the SQL Shell as the postgres user:

postgres# CREATE USER geodjango PASSWORD 'my_passwd';
postgres# CREATE DATABASE geodjango OWNER geodjango;