---
title: SQL COUNT Aggregate Function
---

## SQL COUNT Aggregate Function

The COUNT operator is usually used in combination with a GROUP BY clause. It is one of the SQL "aggregate" functions, which include AVG (average) and SUM.

This function will count the number of rows and return that count as a column in the result set. 

Here are examples of what you would use COUNT for:
* Counting all rows in a table (no group by required)
* Counting the totals of subsets of data (requires a Group By section of the statement)

For reference, here is the current data for all the rows in our example student database.

```sql
select studentID, FullName, programOfStudy, sat_score from student; -- all records with fields of interest
```

![image-1](https://github.com/SteveChevalier/guide-images/blob/master/count01.JPG?raw=true)

This SQL statement provides a count of all rows.  Note that you can give the resulting COUNT column a name using "AS".

```sql
select count(*) AS studentCount from student; -- count of all records
```
![image-1](https://github.com/SteveChevalier/guide-images/blob/master/count02.JPG?raw=true)

Here we get a count of students in each field of study.

```sql
 select programOfStudy, count(*) AS studentCount from the student table with a group by programOfStudy;
```
![image-1](https://github.com/SteveChevalier/guide-images/blob/master/count03.JPG?raw=true)

Here we get a count of students with the same SAT scores.
```sql
 select sat_score, count(*) AS studentCount from the student table with a group by sat_score;
```
![image-1](https://github.com/SteveChevalier/guide-images/blob/master/count04.JPG?raw=true)

Here is an example using the campaign funds table. This is a sum total of the dollars in each transaction and the number of contributions for each political party during the 2016 US Presidential Campaign.
 
```sql
select Specific_Party, Election_Year, format(sum(Total_$),2) AS contribution$Total, count(*) AS numberOfContributions 
from combined_party_data
group by Specific_Party,Election_Year
having Election_Year = 2016;
```

![image-1](https://github.com/SteveChevalier/guide-images/blob/master/count05.JPG?raw=true)

As with all of these things there is much more to it, so please see the manual for your database manager and have fun trying different tests yourself.