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Data & Analytics · Intermediate

CREATE TABLE AS SELECT (CTAS)

A statement that creates a new table and fills it with the results of a query in one step.

Definition

CTAS copies the column structure and data from a SELECT but usually not constraints, indexes or defaults. It is widely used in warehouses and lakehouses (Snowflake, Databricks, Fabric Warehouse, Synapse) for fast transformations because it can be minimally logged and parallelized.

Example

CREATE TABLE Sales2026 AS SELECT * FROM Sales WHERE Year = 2026;

Exam tip

CTAS does not carry over primary keys, indexes or grants from the source.

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