How to select the maximum value of a column in MySQL?

You can use ORDER BY clause or aggregate function MAX() to select the maximum value.

Using ORDER BY

Following is the syntax −

select yourColumnName from yourTableName order by yourColumnName desc limit 0,1;

Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable
   (
   Number int
   );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.52 sec)

Insert records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values(790);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(746);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.18 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(480);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.15 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(880);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values(879);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.20 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select * from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+--------+
| Number |
+--------+
| 790    |
| 746    |
| 480    |
| 880    |
| 879    |
+--------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to select the maximum value of a column in MySQL −

mysql> select Number from DemoTable order by Number desc limit 0,1;

This will produce the following output −

+--------+
| Number |
+--------+
| 880    |
+--------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Aggregate function MAX()

You can also use aggregate function MAX() for this −

mysql> select MAX(Number) from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+-------------+
| MAX(Number) |
+-------------+
| 880         |
+-------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)