# Indexing geo\_shapes with low precision

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-geo-shapes-with-low-precision/22258>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [February 19, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-geo-shapes-with-low-precision/22258 "2015-02-19T05:32:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Russ\_Cam](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/russ_cam/32/895_2.png) [@Russ\_Cam](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Russ_Cam)\
**Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-geo-shapes-with-low-precision/22258/1 "2015-02-19T05:32:41Z")

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I am indexing documents that contain a field of geo\_shape type. I am  
currently indexing with a tree\_level of 10 as this is the level of accuracy  
that _would be_ needed for geospatial queries using that field in the  
future. However, at this point in time, there is no requirement to run  
queries against that field so in effect, I am only interested in persisting  
the geojson within the index to use for presentation purposes when  
retrieving documents.

I am considering using a tree\_level of 1 for the field instead of 10. Am I  
correct in thinking:

1. This will reduce the size of the index on disk because fewer geohashes  
will need to be generated and persisted for tree\_level 1 compared to 10.

2. The geo\_shape json returned for a given document will be the same for  
tree\_level 1 as it would be for 10 i.e. the field source data is unaffected  
but the underlying geohash representation will be.

3. The accuracy of geo\_shape queries on the field will be greatly reduced  
(as noted above, not a concern for the time being).

Any thoughts greatly appreciated!

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 12:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-geo-shapes-with-low-precision/22258/2 "2017-07-06T00:31:39Z")

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