MongoDB Documentation, Release 3.0.4 Considerations Fields with 2dsphere (page 496) indexes must hold geometry data in the form of coordinate pairs or GeoJSON data. If you attempt to insert a document with non-geometry data in a 2dsphere indexed field, or build a 2dsphere index on a collection where the indexed field has non-geometry data, the operation will fail. The geoNear command and the $geoNear pipeline stage require that a collection have at most only one 2dsphere index and/or only one 2d (page 497) index whereas geospatial query operators (e.g. $near and $geoWithin ) permit collections to have multiple geospatial indexes. The geospatial index restriction for the geoNear command and the $geoNear pipeline stage exists because neither the geoNear command nor the $geoNear pipeline stage syntax includes the location field. As such, index selection among multiple 2d indexes or 2dsphere indexes is ambiguous. No such restriction applies for geospatial query operators since these operators take a location field, eliminating the ambiguity. As such, although this tutorial creates multiple 2dsphere indexes, to use the geoNear command or the $geoNear pipeline stage against the example collection, you will need to drop all but one of the 2dsphere indexes. To query using the 2dsphere index, see Query a 2dsphere Index (page 531). The following sections describe queries supported by the 2dsphere index. The $geoWithin operator queries for location data found within a GeoJSON polygon. Your location data must be stored in GeoJSON format. Use the following syntax: Query a 2dsphere Index GeoJSON Objects Bounded by a Polygon db.<collection>.find( { <location field> : { $geoWithin : { $geometry : { type : "Polygon" , coordinates : [ <coordinates> ] } } } } ) db.places.find( { loc : { $geoWithin : { $geometry : { type : "Polygon" , coordinates : [ [ [ 0 , 0 ] , [ 3 , 6 ] , [ 6 , 1 ] , [ 0 , 0 ] ] ] } } } } ) The following example selects all points and shapes that exist entirely within a GeoJSON polygon: Intersections of GeoJSON Objects New in version 2.4. 8.3. Indexing Tutorials 531