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SQL SELECT
DISTINCT Statement
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The SQL SELECT DISTINCT Statement

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

ExampleGet your own SQL Server

Select all the different countries from the "Customers" table:

SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers;

Try it Yourself »

Inside a table, a column often contains many duplicate values; and

sometimes you only want to list the different (distinct) values.

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

Demo Database
Below is a selection from the Customers table used in the examples:

CustomerID CustomerName ContactName Address City P

1 Alfreds Futterkiste Maria Anders Obere Str. 57 Berlin 1

2 Ana Trujillo Emparedados Ana Trujillo Avda. de la México 0

y helados Constitución 2222 D.F.

3 Antonio Moreno Taquería Antonio Moreno Mataderos 2312 México 0

D.F.
 4 Around the Horn Thomas Hardy 120 Hanover Sq. London W

5 Berglunds snabbköp Christina Berguvsvägen 8 Luleå S

Berglund

SELECT Example Without DISTINCT

If you omit the DISTINCT keyword, the SQL statement returns the "Country"
value from all the records of the "Customers" table:

Example
SELECT Country FROM Customers;

Try it Yourself »

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Count Distinct
By using the DISTINCT keyword in a function called COUNT, we can return the
number of different countries.

Example
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT Country) FROM Customers;
Note: The COUNT(DISTINCT column_name) is not supported in Microsoft
Access databases.

Here is a workaround for MS Access:

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

You will learn about the COUNT function later in this tutorial.

Test Yourself With Exercises

Exercise:
Select all the different values from
the Country column in the Customers table.

Country FROM Customers;

Submit Answer »

Start the Exercise

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