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Nearest[{elem1,elem2,…},x]
gives the list of elemi to which x is nearest.
Nearest[{elem1v1,elem2v2,…},x]
gives the vi corresponding to the elemi to which x is nearest.
Nearest[{elem1,elem2,…}{v1,v2,…},x]
gives the same result.
Nearest[{elem1,elem2,…}prop,x]
gives the property prop for the elemi to which x is nearest.
Nearest[data,{x1,x2,…}]
effectively gives {Nearest[data,x1],Nearest[data,x2],…}.
Nearest[data,x,n]
gives the n nearest elemi to x.
Nearest[data,x,{n,r}]
gives the n or fewer nearest elemi to x that are within radius r of x.
Details and OptionsFind the element nearest to 20:
Find the 3 elements nearest to 20:
Find which element is nearest to {2,3} in 2D:
Find the nearest image partition to a subimage:
Scope (9)Give the elements within radius 2:
Give at most 3 nearest elements within radius 2:
Find which element is nearest to {2,3} in 2D and return the appropriate label:
Compute the same using an Association:
Return the index for the nearest string:
Return an Association giving the string element, index, and distance:
Find the 3 elements nearest to 20, simultaneously reporting the elements and their distance to 20:
For uniform random points in 3D, give the distances for the 10 nearest to the origin:
For each of the 10 nearest, give an Association including the point element, index and distance:
Create a lookup function for future use:
Find the date nearest to a given DateObject:
Find out which of these {lat,lon} points on Earth is closest to you:
Express the input as a list of separate GeoPosition objects instead:
Report simultaneously the closest point and the distance to it:
Options (6) DistanceFunction (3)By default, normal Euclidean distance is used for points:
Use the ManhattanDistance, which sums the length of each side:
The ChessboardDistance only takes into account the dimension with the largest separation:
The DistanceFunction can be given as a symbol:
Find nearest colors using a color distance different from the default distance in ColorDistance:
Method (2)Compare different methods for machine-precision data:
In three dimensions, the "KDtree" method is faster:
In 20 dimensions, a simple scan is faster:
The setting Method->{"KDtree","LeafSize"->s} may be used to control the maximum number of points in any leaf of the KD tree constructed:
Plot the lookup time for different points:
WorkingPrecision (1)Using WorkingPrecision->MachinePrecision ensures the fastest evaluation method is used:
The results may not be correct if the numbers are not all distinct to machine precision:
All the points are effectively the same to machine precision:
An appropriate higher value of precision will work:
Applications (8)Plot the Nearest of a list of:
Use a 1-norm ("taxicab distance"):
Highlight the 200 random points closest to the origin:
Create a nearest function from all the words in a dictionary:
Look up words closest to a given word:
Find the outputs from running a sequence of elementary cellular automata:
Generate a complete list of outputs from all 256 elementary cellular automata:
Find which rules give outputs nearest the specified sequences:
Use a negative distance function to find the element farthest away from the given element:
Show the returned element for all values between 1 and 5:
Compute the nearest of the points of that polygon from your current geo location:
Draw the geodesic from your location to that point:
Properties & Relations (2)In the case of a tie, all nearest elements are returned in order:
The single argument form of Nearest returns a NearestFunction object:
This is an optimized lookup function, which is faster than calling Nearest repeatedly:
Neat Examples (1)Find successive nearest words in a dictionary:
Wolfram Research (2007), Nearest, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html (updated 2017). TextWolfram Research (2007), Nearest, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html (updated 2017).
CMSWolfram Language. 2007. "Nearest." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2017. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html.
APAWolfram Language. (2007). Nearest. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html
BibTeX@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_nearest, author="Wolfram Research", title="{Nearest}", year="2017", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html}", note=[Accessed: 11-July-2025 ]}
BibLaTeX@online{reference.wolfram_2025_nearest, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={Nearest}, year={2017}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Nearest.html}, note=[Accessed: 11-July-2025 ]}
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