ORDER BY

Sorts by the specified column in ascending order (ASC is the default and can be omitted).

SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name ASC;

Sorts by the specified column in descending order.

SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column_name DESC;

Sorts by multiple columns (if column1 has the same value, sorts by column2).

SELECT column_name FROM table_name ORDER BY column1 ASC, column2 DESC;

Syntax	Description
ORDER BY column_name	Sorts rows by the specified column. The default order is ascending (ASC).
ASC	Sorts in ascending order (small to large, A to Z, oldest to newest). This is the default when omitted.
DESC	Sorts in descending order (large to small, Z to A, newest to oldest).
ORDER BY col1, col2	When multiple columns are specified, rows with the same value in col1 are further sorted by col2.
NULLS FIRST	Places NULL values at the beginning of the results (supported in PostgreSQL and others).
NULLS LAST	Places NULL values at the end of the results (supported in PostgreSQL and others).

The following 'employees' table is used in the examples below.

Sorts employees by salary in ascending order.

sample_order_by.sql

SELECT name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary ASC;

+---------------+--------+
| name          | salary |
+---------------+--------+
| Shiina Mayuri | 260000 |
| Hashida Itaru | 280000 |
| Okabe Rintaro | 320000 |
| Makise Kurisu | 350000 |
+---------------+--------+
4 rows in set

Sorts employees by salary in descending order (highest first).

sample_order_by.sql

SELECT name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary DESC;

+---------------+--------+
| name          | salary |
+---------------+--------+
| Makise Kurisu | 350000 |
| Okabe Rintaro | 320000 |
| Hashida Itaru | 280000 |
| Shiina Mayuri | 260000 |
+---------------+--------+
4 rows in set

Sorts by department name ascending, then by salary descending within the same department.

sample_order_by.sql

SELECT name, department, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY department ASC, salary DESC;

+---------------+------------------+--------+
| name          | department       | salary |
+---------------+------------------+--------+
| Makise Kurisu | Future Gadget Lab | 350000 |
| Okabe Rintaro | Future Gadget Lab | 320000 |
| Hashida Itaru | Future Gadget Lab | 280000 |
| Shiina Mayuri | Future Gadget Lab | 260000 |
+---------------+------------------+--------+
4 rows in set

Sorts by hire date in descending order (most recently hired first).

sample_order_by.sql

SELECT name, hire_date FROM employees ORDER BY hire_date DESC;

+---------------+------------+
| name          | hire_date  |
+---------------+------------+
| Hashida Itaru | 2022-07-10 |
| Shiina Mayuri | 2021-04-01 |
| Makise Kurisu | 2020-09-15 |
| Okabe Rintaro | 2019-06-01 |
+---------------+------------+
4 rows in set

You can also sort by column position (index) in the SELECT clause. 3 refers to the third column in SELECT (salary in this example).

sample_order_by.sql

SELECT name, department, salary FROM employees ORDER BY 3 DESC;

+---------------+------------------+--------+
| name          | department       | salary |
+---------------+------------------+--------+
| Makise Kurisu | Future Gadget Lab | 350000 |
| Okabe Rintaro | Future Gadget Lab | 320000 |
| Hashida Itaru | Future Gadget Lab | 280000 |
| Shiina Mayuri | Future Gadget Lab | 260000 |
+---------------+------------------+--------+
4 rows in set

The basic syntax of ORDER BY (ASC, DESC, and multiple column specification) works the same across major databases.

SELECT name, department, salary
FROM employees
ORDER BY department ASC, salary DESC;

How NULL values are sorted differs by database. In PostgreSQL and Oracle, you can explicitly control NULL placement using NULLS FIRST and NULLS LAST.

-- PostgreSQL / Oracle
SELECT name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary ASC NULLS LAST;

MySQL and SQL Server do not support NULLS FIRST / LAST. In MySQL, you can use the ISNULL() function or IS NULL to control NULL placement.

-- MySQL (place NULLs at the end)
SELECT name, salary FROM employees ORDER BY salary IS NULL ASC, salary ASC;

ORDER BY is placed at the end of a SELECT statement, after WHERE, GROUP BY, and HAVING. You can specify multiple sort columns, and they are applied in left-to-right priority.

When sorting a column that contains NULL values, MySQL treats NULL as the smallest value — placing it first in ascending order and last in descending order. In PostgreSQL, you can explicitly control this behavior with NULLS FIRST and NULLS LAST.

To limit the number of rows returned along with sorting, see 'LIMIT / OFFSET'.