Your pacific polygon crosses the dateline. Dateline handling is fraught. http://blog.opengeo.org/2010/08/10/shape-of-a-polygon/
For the Geometry type, we just don't do it. We assume a cartesian plane, so your "pacific" polygon is actually a world-girdling huge polygon that runs from the far west to the far east. For the Geography type, you should find you get the right answer. P. On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 8:10 AM, DrYSG <ygutfre...@draper.com> wrote: > Try this in PostGIS 2.0 and tell me why this should return true? > > SELECT ST_Intersects( > st_geomfromtext('SRID=4326;POLYGON((174.375 51.9230769,-168.75 > 51.9230769,-168.75 41.5384615,174.375 41.5384615,174.375 51.9230769))'), > st_geomfromtext('SRID=4326;POLYGON((-70.89651028442381 > 42.462445702609216,-71.23948971557616 42.462445702609216,-71.23948971557616 > 42.269406003536325,-70.89651028442381 42.269406003536325, -70.89651028442381 > 42.462445702609216))') > ); > > I.E I don't think a box in the Boston area should intersect one in the > northern pacific. Am I wrong? > > -- > View this message in context: > http://postgis.17.n6.nabble.com/Why-should-these-boxes-intersect-tp4998895.html > Sent from the PostGIS - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > _______________________________________________ > postgis-users mailing list > postgis-users@postgis.refractions.net > http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users _______________________________________________ postgis-users mailing list postgis-users@postgis.refractions.net http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users