What is the Default Sort Order of ORDER BY?

✅ By default, ORDER BY sorts in:

Ascending (ASC) order — from smallest to largest, A → Z, 0 → 9.

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If you don’t specify anything, this:

SELECT * FROM Employees
ORDER BY salary;

is the same as:

SELECT * FROM Employees
ORDER BY salary ASC;

✅ Default is ASC — Ascending:

• Numbers: lowest to highest (1, 2, 3, 4...).
• Text: alphabetical (A, B, C...).
• Dates: earliest to latest (2023-01-01, 2023-01-02…).

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What if you want descending order?

You explicitly specify:

ORDER BY column_name DESC

Numbers: highest to lowest.

Text: Z → A.

Dates: latest to earliest.

Quick Example

name	salary
Alice	5000
Bob	7000
Carol	6000

Default ORDER BY salary:

SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY salary;

Result:

name	salary
Alice	5000
Carol	6000
Bob	7000

✅ Sorted ascending — lowest to highest salary.

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Explicit ORDER BY salary DESC:

SELECT * FROM Employees ORDER BY salary DESC;

Result:

name	salary
Bob	7000
Carol	6000
Alice	5000

✅ Sorted descending — highest to lowest salary.

In Short

ORDER BY without ASC/DESC sorts in ASC (ascending) order by default.