# DESCRIBE VIEW
<a name="describe-view"></a>

Shows the list of columns for the specified Athena or Amazon Glue Data Catalog view. Useful for examining the attributes of a complex view. 

 For Data Catalog views, the output of the statement is controlled by Lake Formation access control and shows only the columns that the caller has access to.

## Synopsis
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```
DESCRIBE [db_name.]view_name
```

## Example
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```
DESCRIBE orders
```

See also [SHOW COLUMNS](show-columns.md), [SHOW CREATE VIEW](show-create-view.md), [SHOW VIEWS](show-views.md), and [DROP VIEW](drop-view.md).