MySQL - select first N rows

In this article, we would like to show you how to find and select the first row from a table in MySQL.

Quick solution:

SELECT `column1`, `column2`, `columnN`
FROM `table_name`
LIMIT N;

Practical example

To show how to select the first 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 1 - select all columns

In this example, we will select all the information (columns) about the first 3 users from the users table.

Query:

SELECT *
FROM `users`
LIMIT 3;

Output:

Example 2 - select specified columns

In this example, we will find the first 3 users id,  name and email column information.

Query:

SELECT `id`, `name`, `email`
FROM `users`
LIMIT 3;

Output:

Example 3 - first row in some order

In this example, we will select the first row in some order.

SELECT *
FROM `users`
ORDER BY `name`
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,
    `email` VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
    `country` VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)
ENGINE=InnoDB;

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO `users`
    (`name`, `email`, `country`)
VALUES
    ('Tom', 'tom@email.com', 'Poland'),
    ('Chris', 'chris@email.com', 'Spain'),
    ('Jack', 'jack@email.com', 'Spain'),
    ('Kim', 'kim@email.com', 'Vietnam'),
    ('Marco', 'marco@email.com', 'Italy'),
    ('Kate', 'kate@email.com', 'Spain'),
    ('Nam', 'nam@email.com', 'Vietnam');