LIMIT – Control How Many Rows You Get

Quick Syntax

SELECT column1, column2
FROM table_name
ORDER BY column_name DESC
LIMIT number;

This tells SQL:

“Give me just the first few rows — stop after that many.”

Super useful when you’re dealing with a big table and just want the top 5, first 10, or latest 1.

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Here’s the Table You’re Working With

Let’s say you have a table called orders:

a

order_id	customer_name	total_amount
1	Brill Venn	15.99
2	Larka Tove	45.00
3	Brill Venn	15.99
4	Milo Kresh	72.50
5	Vesh Luro	10.00
6	Tola Jinn	29.99

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Suppose You Want the Top 3 Highest Orders

SELECT customer_name, total_amount
FROM orders
ORDER BY total_amount DESC
LIMIT 3;

Output:

Milo Kresh    72.50
Larka Tove    45.00
Tola Jinn     29.99

SQL sorted everything by total_amount, and then used LIMIT 3 to only show the top 3 rows. Great for a leaderboard or summary.

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Suppose You Just Want the First 2 Orders by ID

SELECT order_id, customer_name
FROM orders
ORDER BY order_id ASC
LIMIT 2;

Output:

1   Brill Venn
2   Larka Tove

This shows the first two rows in the table, ordered by order_id. Useful for previews or testing.

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Suppose You Want to Skip Some Rows (LIMIT + OFFSET)

You want to skip the first 2 orders and then show the next 3.

SELECT customer_name, total_amount
FROM orders
ORDER BY order_id
LIMIT 3 OFFSET 2;

Output:

3   Brill Venn
4   Milo Kresh
5   Vesh Luro

OFFSET 2 skips the first two rows, and LIMIT 3 shows the next three. This is especially helpful for pagination or “load more” features.

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Recap – What You Learned

• LIMIT controls how many rows SQL returns
• Use with ORDER BY to grab top, bottom, or recent data
• OFFSET skips rows before LIMIT kicks in
• Works in MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, and more
• In SQL Server, use TOP instead

Next, check out BETWEEN — it helps you find results within a certain range (like amounts between 10 and 50).
See how it works here.