mySQL query to find the most repeated value

Question

I have a table with several rows, for each of them I need to know the most common value.

Example:

row_1 has

car
boat
car
car
truck
truck
plan         


        

Answer 1

To get a list of values and the number of their appearances:

select col_name, count(col_name) c from table
group by col_name
order by c desc;

If you want only the most common value:

select col_name, count(col_name) c from table
group by col_name
order by c desc
limit 1;