Standard SQL defines NCHAR or NATIONAL CHAR as a way to indicate that a CHAR column should use some predefined character set. MySQL 5.0 uses utf8 as this predefined character set. For example, these data type declarations are equivalent: CHAR(10) CHARACTER SET utf8 NATIONAL CHARACTER(10) NCHAR(10)
CHAR(10) CHARACTER SET utf8
NATIONAL CHARACTER(10)
NCHAR(10)