I'm storing a large list of lnt/lat points in a MySQL database. At the moment these are projected points for the UK in M, but in the long term I would like to make sure that I can store the coordinates of points for all over the world.  What datatype should I use?

I started using `decimal(18,12)`, but was unsure whether this precision is needed or whether I could just use a `float`. (I included my code, in case there is anything else I should be considering:

    CREATE TABLE UKTest
    (
    lat FLOAT,
    lng FLOAT
    )

I'm quite new to SQL so I'm unsure whether the data type is significant when running a query. I assumed that the overall memory would vary based on the variable type. Is there a benefit of using a spatial database over a basic MySQL database for this type of work?