Practice · Education · Medium

The top university city (CTE)

Using a CTE of university counts per city, return the single city with the most universities, with its count n. Break ties alphabetically.

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What you are given

WITH cc AS (SELECT city, COUNT(*) AS n FROM universities GROUP BY city) then ORDER BY n DESC, city LIMIT 1.

WITH cc AS (
  SELECT city, COUNT(*) AS n FROM universities GROUP BY city
)
SELECT city, n
FROM cc
ORDER BY n DESC, city
LIMIT 1;

The reference solution is checked automatically when you run your query on the practice page — results are compared row by row.

Cairo concentrates a large share of Egypt’s top universities — Cairo University, AUC, Ain Shams and Al-Azhar all sit in the capital. (QS 2026)