Provided by: postgresql-client-16_16.6-0ubuntu0.24.10.1_amd64 
NAME
CREATE_DATABASE - create a new database
SYNOPSIS
CREATE DATABASE name
[ WITH ] [ OWNER [=] user_name ]
[ TEMPLATE [=] template ]
[ ENCODING [=] encoding ]
[ STRATEGY [=] strategy ]
[ LOCALE [=] locale ]
[ LC_COLLATE [=] lc_collate ]
[ LC_CTYPE [=] lc_ctype ]
[ ICU_LOCALE [=] icu_locale ]
[ ICU_RULES [=] icu_rules ]
[ LOCALE_PROVIDER [=] locale_provider ]
[ COLLATION_VERSION = collation_version ]
[ TABLESPACE [=] tablespace_name ]
[ ALLOW_CONNECTIONS [=] allowconn ]
[ CONNECTION LIMIT [=] connlimit ]
[ IS_TEMPLATE [=] istemplate ]
[ OID [=] oid ]
DESCRIPTION
CREATE DATABASE creates a new PostgreSQL database.
To create a database, you must be a superuser or have the special CREATEDB privilege. See
CREATE ROLE (CREATE_ROLE(7)).
By default, the new database will be created by cloning the standard system database
template1. A different template can be specified by writing TEMPLATE name. In particular,
by writing TEMPLATE template0, you can create a pristine database (one where no
user-defined objects exist and where the system objects have not been altered) containing
only the standard objects predefined by your version of PostgreSQL. This is useful if you
wish to avoid copying any installation-local objects that might have been added to
template1.
PARAMETERS
name
The name of a database to create.
user_name
The role name of the user who will own the new database, or DEFAULT to use the default
(namely, the user executing the command). To create a database owned by another role,
you must be able to SET ROLE to that role.
template
The name of the template from which to create the new database, or DEFAULT to use the
default template (template1).
encoding
Character set encoding to use in the new database. Specify a string constant (e.g.,
'SQL_ASCII'), or an integer encoding number, or DEFAULT to use the default encoding
(namely, the encoding of the template database). The character sets supported by the
PostgreSQL server are described in Section 24.3.1. See below for additional
restrictions.
strategy
Strategy to be used in creating the new database. If the WAL_LOG strategy is used, the
database will be copied block by block and each block will be separately written to
the write-ahead log. This is the most efficient strategy in cases where the template
database is small, and therefore it is the default. The older FILE_COPY strategy is
also available. This strategy writes a small record to the write-ahead log for each
tablespace used by the target database. Each such record represents copying an entire
directory to a new location at the filesystem level. While this does reduce the
write-ahead log volume substantially, especially if the template database is large, it
also forces the system to perform a checkpoint both before and after the creation of
the new database. In some situations, this may have a noticeable negative impact on
overall system performance.
locale
Sets the default collation order and character classification in the new database.
Collation affects the sort order applied to strings, e.g., in queries with ORDER BY,
as well as the order used in indexes on text columns. Character classification affects
the categorization of characters, e.g., lower, upper, and digit. Also sets the
associated aspects of the operating system environment, LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE. The
default is the same setting as the template database. See Section 24.2.2.3.1 and
Section 24.2.2.3.2 for details.
Can be overridden by setting lc_collate, lc_ctype, or icu_locale individually.
Tip
The other locale settings lc_messages, lc_monetary, lc_numeric, and lc_time are
not fixed per database and are not set by this command. If you want to make them
the default for a specific database, you can use ALTER DATABASE ... SET.
lc_collate
Sets LC_COLLATE in the database server's operating system environment. The default is
the setting of locale if specified, otherwise the same setting as the template
database. See below for additional restrictions.
If locale_provider is libc, also sets the default collation order to use in the new
database, overriding the setting locale.
lc_ctype
Sets LC_CTYPE in the database server's operating system environment. The default is
the setting of locale if specified, otherwise the same setting as the template
database. See below for additional restrictions.
If locale_provider is libc, also sets the default character classification to use in
the new database, overriding the setting locale.
icu_locale
Specifies the ICU locale (see Section 24.2.2.3.2) for the database default collation
order and character classification, overriding the setting locale. The locale provider
must be ICU. The default is the setting of locale if specified; otherwise the same
setting as the template database.
icu_rules
Specifies additional collation rules to customize the behavior of the default
collation of this database. This is supported for ICU only. See Section 24.2.3.4 for
details.
locale_provider
Specifies the provider to use for the default collation in this database. Possible
values are icu (if the server was built with ICU support) or libc. By default, the
provider is the same as that of the template. See Section 24.1.4 for details.
collation_version
Specifies the collation version string to store with the database. Normally, this
should be omitted, which will cause the version to be computed from the actual version
of the database collation as provided by the operating system. This option is intended
to be used by pg_upgrade for copying the version from an existing installation.
See also ALTER DATABASE (ALTER_DATABASE(7)) for how to handle database collation
version mismatches.
tablespace_name
The name of the tablespace that will be associated with the new database, or DEFAULT
to use the template database's tablespace. This tablespace will be the default
tablespace used for objects created in this database. See CREATE TABLESPACE
(CREATE_TABLESPACE(7)) for more information.
allowconn
If false then no one can connect to this database. The default is true, allowing
connections (except as restricted by other mechanisms, such as GRANT/REVOKE CONNECT).
connlimit
How many concurrent connections can be made to this database. -1 (the default) means
no limit.
istemplate
If true, then this database can be cloned by any user with CREATEDB privileges; if
false (the default), then only superusers or the owner of the database can clone it.
oid
The object identifier to be used for the new database. If this parameter is not
specified, PostgreSQL will choose a suitable OID automatically. This parameter is
primarily intended for internal use by pg_upgrade, and only pg_upgrade can specify a
value less than 16384.
Optional parameters can be written in any order, not only the order illustrated above.
NOTES
CREATE DATABASE cannot be executed inside a transaction block.
Errors along the line of “could not initialize database directory” are most likely related
to insufficient permissions on the data directory, a full disk, or other file system
problems.
Use DROP DATABASE to remove a database.
The program createdb(1) is a wrapper program around this command, provided for
convenience.
Database-level configuration parameters (set via ALTER DATABASE) and database-level
permissions (set via GRANT) are not copied from the template database.
Although it is possible to copy a database other than template1 by specifying its name as
the template, this is not (yet) intended as a general-purpose “COPY DATABASE” facility.
The principal limitation is that no other sessions can be connected to the template
database while it is being copied. CREATE DATABASE will fail if any other connection
exists when it starts; otherwise, new connections to the template database are locked out
until CREATE DATABASE completes. See Section 23.3 for more information.
The character set encoding specified for the new database must be compatible with the
chosen locale settings (LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE). If the locale is C (or equivalently
POSIX), then all encodings are allowed, but for other locale settings there is only one
encoding that will work properly. (On Windows, however, UTF-8 encoding can be used with
any locale.) CREATE DATABASE will allow superusers to specify SQL_ASCII encoding
regardless of the locale settings, but this choice is deprecated and may result in
misbehavior of character-string functions if data that is not encoding-compatible with the
locale is stored in the database.
The encoding and locale settings must match those of the template database, except when
template0 is used as template. This is because other databases might contain data that
does not match the specified encoding, or might contain indexes whose sort ordering is
affected by LC_COLLATE and LC_CTYPE. Copying such data would result in a database that is
corrupt according to the new settings. template0, however, is known to not contain any
data or indexes that would be affected.
There is currently no option to use a database locale with nondeterministic comparisons
(see CREATE COLLATION for an explanation). If this is needed, then per-column collations
would need to be used.
The CONNECTION LIMIT option is only enforced approximately; if two new sessions start at
about the same time when just one connection “slot” remains for the database, it is
possible that both will fail. Also, the limit is not enforced against superusers or
background worker processes.
EXAMPLES
To create a new database:
CREATE DATABASE lusiadas;
To create a database sales owned by user salesapp with a default tablespace of salesspace:
CREATE DATABASE sales OWNER salesapp TABLESPACE salesspace;
To create a database music with a different locale:
CREATE DATABASE music
LOCALE 'sv_SE.utf8'
TEMPLATE template0;
In this example, the TEMPLATE template0 clause is required if the specified locale is
different from the one in template1. (If it is not, then specifying the locale explicitly
is redundant.)
To create a database music2 with a different locale and a different character set
encoding:
CREATE DATABASE music2
LOCALE 'sv_SE.iso885915'
ENCODING LATIN9
TEMPLATE template0;
The specified locale and encoding settings must match, or an error will be reported.
Note that locale names are specific to the operating system, so that the above commands
might not work in the same way everywhere.
COMPATIBILITY
There is no CREATE DATABASE statement in the SQL standard. Databases are equivalent to
catalogs, whose creation is implementation-defined.
SEE ALSO
ALTER DATABASE (ALTER_DATABASE(7)), DROP DATABASE (DROP_DATABASE(7))