How to Describe a Table in Redshift

Last updated July 25, 2026 · By the SaturnSQL team

There is no DESCRIBE statement. Query PG_TABLE_DEF for columns plus encoding, distkey, and sortkey flags (after setting search_path), or SVV_COLUMNS, which works for any schema without search_path tricks.

SET search_path TO public;
SELECT "column", type, encoding, distkey, sortkey
FROM pg_table_def
WHERE tablename = 'orders';

SELECT column_name, data_type, is_nullable, column_default
FROM svv_columns
WHERE table_schema = 'public' AND table_name = 'orders'
ORDER BY ordinal_position;