SQL Server 2008 adds new spatial data types and methods for storing and handling spatial data. The two new data types are GEOMETRY and GEOGRAPHY. This new functionality provides great capabilities to process spatial data.

Here is one brief example to demonstrate the GEOGRAPHY data type and one of the related methods. The code below finds if a geographical location defined by latitude and longitude coordinates is within a geographical region defined by a polygon.

DECLARE @point GEOGRAPHY;
DECLARE @polygon GEOGRAPHY;
 
SET @point = geography::Parse('POINT(49.274138 73.098562)');
SET @polygon = geography::Parse('POLYGON((47.0 90.0, 47.0 73.0, 50.0 52.0, 50.0 54.0, 47.0 90.0))');
 
SELECT @polygon.STIntersects(@point);

Additional resources:

Working with Spatial Data
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933876(SQL.100).aspx

Geometry Data Type Method Reference
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933973(SQL.100).aspx

Geography Data Type Method Reference
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933802(SQL.100).aspx

Working with Spatial Indexes
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895265(SQL.100).aspx