Name
ST_UnaryUnion — Like ST_Union, but working at the geometry component level.
Synopsis
geometry ST_UnaryUnion(geometry geom);
Description
Unlike ST_Union, ST_UnaryUnion does dissolve boundaries between components of a multipolygon (invalid) and does perform union between the components of a geometrycollection. Each components of the input geometry is assumed to be valid, so you won't get a valid multipolygon out of a bow-tie polygon (invalid).
You may use this function to node a set of linestrings. You may mix ST_UnaryUnion with ST_Collect to fine-tune how many geometries at once you want to dissolve to be nice on both memory size and CPU time, finding the balance between ST_Union and ST_MemUnion.
This function supports 3d and will not drop the z-index.
Availability: 2.0.0 - requires GEOS >= 3.3.0.