H3 & global grids
Indexing the earth into cells: H3 hexagons, S2, geohash and quadkeys — resolution, hierarchy and the joins they make cheap.
Everything on Spatial Workflow about h3 & global grids, in the order that usually works: understand the idea, then run the task, then fix it when it goes wrong. 20 guides in total.
One learning path runs through this topic — follow it if you would rather work through a route than pick a single guide.
🧭 Start with the concepts
The ideas the how-to guides below assume you already have.
- Discrete Global Grids Explained: H3, S2, Geohash and Why Cells Beat Coordinates discrete global grid system explained
- H3 Explained: How a Hexagonal Grid Indexes the Whole Earth h3 hexagon index explained
- Choosing an H3 Resolution: Cell Size, Counts and What Each Level Can Show h3 resolution cell size
- H3 Hierarchy Explained: Parents, Children and Why They Do Not Nest Exactly h3 parent child hierarchy
- Geohash Explained: Prefixes, Precision and the Edge Problem geohash explained precision
- S2 Cells Explained: Squares on a Cube and When They Beat Hexagons s2 geometry cells explained
⚙️ Then do the task
Step-by-step walkthroughs with code you can copy and adapt.
- How to Assign Points to H3 Cells in Python h3 python points to cells
- How to Aggregate Points into H3 Hexagons and Map Them aggregate points h3 hexagons
- How to Fill a Polygon with H3 Cells h3 polygon to cells python
- How to Turn H3 Cells into a GeoDataFrame of Polygons h3 cells to polygons geopandas
- How to Use H3 Neighbours for k-Ring Smoothing and Buffers h3 grid_disk k ring python
- How to Join Two Point Datasets on an H3 Index Instead of a Spatial Join join on h3 index
- How to Use H3 in DuckDB for Grid Aggregation at Scale duckdb h3 extension
- How to Index Data by Quadkey and Web Map Tile quadkey python tile index
- How to Compact an H3 Cell Set to Store a Region Cheaply h3 compact cells
🔧 When it breaks
The errors this topic produces, with the cause explained rather than just the command.
- Fixing H3 Cells in the Wrong Place: Latitude and Longitude Order h3 lat lng order wrong
- Fixing H3 Hexagons That Stretch Across the Map at the Antimeridian h3 antimeridian polygon
- Fixing H3 Polygon Fill That Misses Cells or Returns Nothing h3 polygon_to_cells empty
- Fixing H3 AttributeError After Upgrading: the v3 to v4 API Rename h3 has no attribute geo_to_h3
- Fixing an H3 Map That Misleads: Unequal Cell Areas and Empty Cells h3 cell area distortion
Learning paths through this topic
A curated route rather than a list — the guides in the order that builds on itself.
Related topics
Subjects that keep coming up alongside this one, most overlap first.