MIN and MAX functions in SQL

Introduction

MIN and MAX functions help find the smallest or largest value in a group of data. They make it easy to compare numbers or dates.

Finding the lowest price of products in a store.

Getting the highest score in a game leaderboard.

Checking the earliest or latest date in a list of events.

Finding the minimum or maximum temperature recorded in a week.

Syntax

SQL

SELECT MIN(column_name) FROM table_name;
SELECT MAX(column_name) FROM table_name;

MIN returns the smallest value in the chosen column.

MAX returns the largest value in the chosen column.

Examples

Finds the lowest price from the products table.

SQL

SELECT MIN(price) FROM products;

Finds the highest score from the game_scores table.

SQL

SELECT MAX(score) FROM game_scores;

Finds the earliest birthdate among employees.

SQL

SELECT MIN(birthdate) FROM employees;

Finds the highest salary in the Sales department.

SQL

SELECT MAX(salary) FROM employees WHERE department = 'Sales';

Sample Program

This creates a products table, adds three items with prices, then finds the lowest and highest price.

SQL

CREATE TABLE products (id INT, name VARCHAR(20), price DECIMAL(5,2));
INSERT INTO products VALUES (1, 'Pen', 1.20), (2, 'Notebook', 2.50), (3, 'Eraser', 0.80);
SELECT MIN(price) AS LowestPrice, MAX(price) AS HighestPrice FROM products;

Important Notes

MIN and MAX ignore NULL values in the column.

You can use these functions with numbers, dates, and even text (alphabetically).

They are often used with GROUP BY to find min or max per group.

Summary

MIN finds the smallest value in a column.

MAX finds the largest value in a column.

Both help quickly compare and find extremes in data.