MySQL - count rows per year

In this article, we would like to show you how to count rows per year in MySQL.

Quick solution:

SELECT
    DATE_FORMAT(`datetime_column_name`, '%Y') as `alias_name1`,
    COUNT(*) as `alias_name2`
FROM `table_name`
GROUP BY YEAR(`datetime_column_name`)
ORDER BY `alias_name2` DESC;

Practical example

To show how to count rows per year, we will use the following table:

Note:

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

Example

In this example, we will display the year and the number of registered users for each year in descending order.

Query:

SELECT
    DATE_FORMAT(`registration_time`, '%Y') as `date`,
    COUNT(*) as `count`
FROM `users`
GROUP BY YEAR(`registration_time`)
ORDER BY `count` DESC;

Result:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE `users` (
	`id` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
	`username` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	`registration_time` DATETIME NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO `users`
	(`username`, `registration_time`)
VALUES
	('Tom', '2021-01-01 11:41:31'),
	('Chris','2021-02-02 11:42:45'),
	('Jack','2021-03-03 15:13:39'),
    ('Kim','2021-03-03 15:24:51'),
    ('Marco','2020-03-03 22:35:38'),
	('Kate','2019-04-04 22:46:51'),
	('Nam','2019-04-04 22:57:37');