Create A MySQL Database With Charset UTF-8
Answer : Update in 2019-10-29 As mentions by @Manuel Jordan in comments, utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci is the new default in MySQL 8.0 , so the following is now again a better practice: CREATE DATABASE mydatabase CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci; Answer before 2019-10-29 Note: The following is now considered a better practice (see bikeman868's answer): CREATE DATABASE mydatabase CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci; Original answer: Try this: CREATE DATABASE mydatabase CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci; For more information, see Database Character Set and Collation in the MySQL Reference Manual. You should use: CREATE DATABASE mydb CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci; Note that utf8_general_ci is no longer recommended best practice. See the related Q & A: What's the difference between utf8_general_ci and utf8_unicode_ci on Stack Overflow.