Table Character Set and Collation which the declaration includes no  CHARACTER SET  or a  COLLATE  attribute. To override this, provide CHARACTER SET  and  COLLATE  explicitly. Every table has a table character set and a table collation. The  CREATE TABLE  and  ALTER TABLE statements have optional clauses for specifying the table character set and collation: Example: MySQL chooses the table character set and collation in the following manner: The table character set and collation are used as default values for column definitions if the column character set and collation are not specified in individual column definitions. The table character set and collation are MySQL extensions; there are no such things in standard SQL. Every “character”  column (that is, a column of type  CHAR ,  VARCHAR , a  TEXT  type, or any synonym) has a column character set and a column collation. Column definition syntax for  CREATE TABLE  and  ALTER TABLE  has optional clauses for specifying the column character set and collation: These clauses can also be used for  ENUM  and  SET  columns: Examples: •If both  CHARACTER SET  charset_name  and  COLLATE  collation_name  are specified, character set charset_name  and collation  collation_name  are used. •If  CHARACTER SET  charset_name  is specified without  COLLATE , character set  charset_name and its default collation are used. To see the default collation for each character set, use the  SHOW CHARACTER SET  statement or query the  INFORMATION_SCHEMA CHARACTER_SETS  table. •If  COLLATE  collation_name  is specified without  CHARACTER SET , the character set associated with collation_name  and collation  collation_name  are used. •Otherwise (neither  CHARACTER SET  nor  COLLATE  is specified), the database character set and collation are used. col_name  {CHAR | VARCHAR | TEXT} ( col_length ) [CHARACTER SET  charset_name ] [COLLATE  collation_name ] col_name  {ENUM | SET} ( val_list ) [CHARACTER SET  charset_name ] [COLLATE  collation_name ] CREATE TABLE t1 ( col1 VARCHAR(5) CREATE TABLE  tbl_name  ( column_list ) [[DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET  charset_name ] [COLLATE  collation_name ]] ALTER TABLE  tbl_name [[DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET  charset_name ] [COLLATE  collation_name ] CREATE TABLE t1 ( ... ) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_danish_ci; 10.3.4 Table Character Set and Collation 10.3.5 Column Character Set and Collation 1936