SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

The SELECT DISTINCT statement is used to return only distinct (different) values.

Inside a table, a column often contains many duplicate values; and sometimes you only want to list the different (distinct) values.

SELECT DISTINCT Syntax

SELECT DISTINCT column1, column2, ...
FROM table_name;

SELECT Example

The following SQL statement selects all (and duplicate) values from the "Country" column in the "Customers" table:

SELECT Country FROM Customers;

SELECT DISTINCT Examples

The following SQL statement selects only the DISTINCT values from the "Country" column in the "Customers" table:

SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers;

The following SQL statement lists the number of different (distinct) customer countries:

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Country) FROM Customers;

Note: The example above will not work in Firefox and Microsoft Edge! Because COUNT(DISTINCT column_name) is not supported in Microsoft Access databases. Firefox and Microsoft Edge are using Microsoft Access in our examples.

Here is the workaround for MS Access:

SELECT Count(*) AS DistinctCountries
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers);