SQL Tutorial

Examples — towns & counties

Worked SQL examples on the Pacific Northwest pnw_towns, pnw_counties, and fips tables. Each section has runnable examples with starter editors — click Show solution to populate one, then Run to see the result. You can also try your own version first and use Check answer to confirm.

ER diagram · towns & counties
Text description of this diagram

Three tables and two helper views.

  • pnw_towns — one row per town. Columns: town, state, primary_county, secondary_county, tertiary_county, population_2020_census, population_2010_census, land_area_sq_mi.
  • pnw_counties — one row per county. Columns: county, state, fips_short, county_seat, year_established, origin, etymology, population_2022, land_area_sq_mi.
  • fips — FIPS state codes. Columns: fips, name, state.

Relationships: a town's primary_county (and optionally secondary_county/tertiary_county) corresponds to a county in pnw_counties. Both tables share a state column that can join to fips.state.

Helper views: towns_with_county and towns_with_counties both project (town, primary_county) from pnw_towns.