Where to Get a Sample Database to Practice SQL (And How to Check It Loaded)

By Michael Nocito , data analyst · Published August 8, 2026 By the end of this page you will have a real database sitting on your own computer, with 11 tables, 3,503 tracks and 412 customer invoices in it, and you will have run a query that proves every table arrived intact. Then you will run a join across two of those tables, which is the thing a single spreadsheet can never teach you. It takes about five minutes and costs nothing. Here is what to actually do today. Download the Chinook database file, open it in DB Browser for SQLite, and run one query that counts the rows in every table. If the counts match the ones printed below, you have a working practice environment and you can stop shopping for one. The short version: get Chinook_Sqlite.sqlite , open it, count the rows, then join two tables. Northwind and Sakila are the other two names you will see, and there is a table further down saying when each is the right pick. The reason a sample database beats the CSV you already have is one idea, so it gets the picture. The original carries a diagram here. In words: Two panels side by side. The left panel holds a single grid of rows and columns, standing alone with nothing attached to it. The right panel holds four smaller grids arranged around each other. A highlighted column at the edge of each small grid is joined by a solid line to a matching highlighted column on a neighbouring grid, so all four grids are wired together into a connected shape. The left panel has no lines at all, because there is nothing for a line to reach. Every number on this page is real. I downloaded Chinook v1.4.5 and Northwind on 8 August 2026 and ran each query with SQLite 3.51.1. The counts, the outputs and the row multiplication are what came back, not what should have come back. If you have no database software at all yet, how to set up a SQL database is the fifteen-minute version of that step, and this page picks up right after it. 1. Why one CSV is not enough Before the explanation: