How to select nth Highest Record in MySQL

To select the nth highest (or nth maximum) record in a MySQL database table, you can use a combination of the LIMIT and ORDER BY clauses. The ORDER BY clause is used to sort the records in descending order, and the LIMIT clause is used to limit the result set to the nth record. Here’s how you can do it:

Assuming you have a table named your_table and you want to select the 5th highest record based on a column named your_column, you can use the following SQL query:

SELECT your_column
FROM your_table
ORDER BY your_column DESC
LIMIT 1 OFFSET 4;

In this query:

• your_column: Replace this with the column by which you want to determine the order.
• your_table: Replace this with the name of your table.

The key points to note are:

• We use ORDER BY your_column DESC to sort the records in descending order, meaning the highest values will appear first.
• We use LIMIT 1 to limit the result set to only one record.
• We use OFFSET 4 to skip the first four records, effectively selecting the 5th highest record. The offset is zero-based, so to get the 1st highest, you would use OFFSET 0.

Adjust the value after OFFSET to specify the nth highest record you want to retrieve.

If you want to select the nth highest record based on a different condition or criteria, you can change the ORDER BY clause to match your specific sorting criteria.