CREATE DATABASE creates a database with the given name. To use this statement, you need the CREATE privilege for the database. CREATE SCHEMA is a synonym for CREATE DATABASE.

An error occurs if the database exists and you did not specify IF NOT EXISTS.

CREATE DATABASE is not permitted within a session that has an active LOCK TABLES statement.

create_specification options specify database characteristics. Database characteristics are stored in the data dictionary.

A database in MySQL is implemented as a directory containing files that correspond to tables in the database. Because there are no tables in a database when it is initially created, the CREATE DATABASE statement creates only a directory under the MySQL data directory. Rules for permissible database names are given in Section 9.2, “Schema Object Names”. If a database name contains special characters, the name for the database directory contains encoded versions of those characters as described in Section 9.2.3, “Mapping of Identifiers to File Names”.

Creating a database directory by manually creating a directory under the data directory (for example, with mkdir) is unsupported in MySQL 8.0.

You can also use the mysqladmin program to create databases. See Section 4.5.2, “mysqladmin — Client for Administering a MySQL Server”.