MySQL - select last N rows

In this article, we would like to show you how to select last N rows from a table in MySQL.

Quick solution

Ascending order:

SELECT * FROM (
    SELECT * FROM `table_name` 
	 ORDER BY `column_name` DESC
	 LIMIT N
) subquery
ORDER BY `column_name` ASC;

Descending order:

SELECT * FROM `table_name` 
ORDER BY `column_name` DESC 
LIMIT N;

Practical example

To show how to select last N rows from a table, we will use the following table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example - ascending order

In this example, we will select last three users from the users table in ascending order.

Query:

SELECT * FROM (
    SELECT * FROM `users` 
	 ORDER BY `id` DESC
	 LIMIT 3
) subquery
ORDER BY `id` ASC;

Output:

Example - descending order

In this example, we will select last three users from the users table in descending order.

Query:

SELECT * FROM `users` ORDER BY `id` DESC LIMIT 3;

Output:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE `users` (
	`id` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
	`name` VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	`country` VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO `users`
	(`name`, `country`)
VALUES
	('Tom', 'Poland'),
	('Chris', 'Spain'),
	('Jack', 'Spain'),
   ('Kim', 'Vietnam'),
   ('Marco', 'Italy'),
	('Kate', 'Spain'),
	('Nam', 'Vietnam');