> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://villagesql.com/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Sakila sample database > Every lesson in this tutorial queries Sakila, a DVD rental schema of 16 tables and 16,044 rentals. Here is what is in it and where it comes from. All examples on this page work on VillageSQL. Install Now → Every lesson in this tutorial queries the same database, so you load it once and then stop thinking about it. That database is Sakila, which models a chain of 2 DVD rental stores: the films they carry, the customers who rent them, the staff who serve them, and the payments that result. Sakila suits a tutorial because of its size. 1,000 films and 16,044 rentals are enough that a query returns something worth looking at, and there are few enough tables that you can keep the shape of it in your head. ## What is in it Sakila holds 16 tables of data. These are the counts on a freshly loaded copy. | Table | Rows | What it holds | | - | - | - | | `actor` | 200 | One row per actor | | `address` | 603 | Street addresses, shared by customers, staff and stores | | `category` | 16 | Film genres | | `city` | 600 | Cities, each belonging to a country | | `country` | 109 | Countries | | `customer` | 599 | One row per customer of either store | | `film` | 1000 | The film catalog, with rental rate and length | | `film_actor` | 5462 | Which actors appear in which films | | `film_category` | 1000 | Which category each film belongs to | | `film_text` | 1000 | Film titles and descriptions, for full text search | | `inventory` | 4581 | Physical copies of films, held at a store | | `language` | 6 | Languages a film can be in | | `payment` | 16044 | One row per payment taken | | `rental` | 16044 | One row per rental, with the dates out and back | | `staff` | 2 | The 2 members of staff | | `store` | 2 | The 2 stores | You can check any of these counts yourself once the next lesson has loaded Sakila. `COUNT(*)` reports how many rows a table holds: ```sql theme={null} SELECT COUNT(*) FROM actor; ``` ```text theme={null} +----------+ | COUNT(*) | +----------+ | 200 | +----------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) ``` Sakila also carries 7 views, which are saved queries rather than stored rows: `actor_info`, `customer_list`, `film_list`, `nicer_but_slower_film_list`, `sales_by_film_category`, `sales_by_store` and `staff_list`. No lesson uses them, but they are there if you want to read how someone else wrote the same joins. ## The tables the lessons lean on You do not need all 16. A handful carry most of the examples. * `film` is the workhorse. It has text, numbers, dates and a foreign key, so most ideas can be shown against it alone. * `language` has 6 rows, so a query against it prints a complete result you can check by eye. * `customer`, `address` and `city` chain together through foreign keys, which makes them the natural set for the join lessons. ## Where it comes from Oracle publishes Sakila as a sample database. Its schema file and its data file are covered by the New BSD license, which permits commercial use as long as the notice travels with the files. That notice is reproduced in full in the [`NOTICE` file](https://github.com/villagesql/villagesql-docs/blob/main/NOTICE) of the repository that holds these docs. The next lesson downloads Sakila from Oracle and loads it into your server. ## See also * [Load Sakila](/docs/tutorial/load-sakila) — download it and load it into your server * [Normalization in MySQL](/docs/guides/normalization) — why a schema splits data across tables * [Foreign keys in MySQL](/docs/guides/foreign-keys) — the relationships the join lessons follow MySQL is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. VillageSQL is not affiliated with or endorsed by Oracle Corporation.