[postgis-users] Strange ST_Area problem

[Eric Ladner]

I've got some building outlines that I'm pretty sure I've worked with
before.  They are all srid 4326 (lat/lon), converted from a SHP file.

ST_Area returns extremely small numbers for any of the buildings.
It's almost like it's looking at the data like they are absolute
numbers instead of lat/lon.

Thoughts?

As an example:

select st_npoints(the_geom), st_srid(the_geom), st_summary(the_geom),
st_area(st_transform(the_geom,4326)) from buildings;

  st_npoints | st_srid |            st_summary            |
st_area
------------+---------+----------------------------------+----------------------
          5 |    4326 |                                  |  9.7305773438805e-09
                      : MultiPolygon[BS] with 1 elements
                      :   Polygon[] with 1 rings
                      :    ring 0 has 5 points
                      :
          5 |    4326 |                                  |  1.1065881433403e-08
                      : MultiPolygon[BS] with 1 elements
                      :   Polygon[] with 1 rings
                      :    ring 0 has 5 points
                      :


-- 
Eric Ladner