mysql> CREATE TABLE test (country varchar(255)); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.17 sec) mysql> INSERT INTO test VALUES ('Uganda'), ('US'), ('Canada'), ('Antigua'); Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.09 sec) Records: 4 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0 mysql> SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY FIELD(country, 'US', 'Canada', country); +---------+ | country | +---------+ | US | | Canada | | Uganda | | Antigua | +---------+ 4 rows in set (0.03 sec) mysql> SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY FIELD(country, 'US', 'Canada', country), country; +---------+ | country | +---------+ | US | | Canada | | Antigua | | Uganda | +---------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> select * from country order by field(`country`, 'Norway', 'England', `country`); +-----+---------+ | uid | country | +-----+---------+ | 5 | Norway | | 2 | England | | 1 | America | | 3 | France | | 4 | Spain | | 6 | Sweden | +-----+---------+ 6 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> select * from country order by field(`country`, 'Norway', 'England', `country`) `country`; ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'country`' at line 1