SQL Server Data Types - NVARCHAR

Versions: SQL Server 2008, 2005, 2000, 7.0 and 6.5

SQL Server - NVARCHAR
Syntax	NVARCHAR[(n \| max)]
Data	Variable-length character data in Unicode (UCS-2) character set
Parameters	n is the maximum number of characters, optional
Range	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 4000, if max is specified, the maximum length is 2G
Default	n is 1
Padding	Not right-padded with spaces to n (ANSI_PADDING option does not apply to NVARCHAR)
Trailing Spaces	Not removed when the value is stored and retrieved
Empty String	'' is treated as empty string, 0 characters in length
Storage Size	n*2 + 2 bytes
Synonyms	NATIONAL CHAR VARYING, NATIONAL CHARACTER VARYING
Standards	ANSI SQL

SQL Server NVARCHAR - Equivalents in Other Databases

Database	Data Type and Conversion
Oracle	NVARCHAR2(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 4000/charsize	NCLOB, 4G
MySQL	NVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 21845	LONGTEXT, 4G
PostgreSQL	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 1G	TEXT, 1G
Sybase ASE	NVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ pagesize/@@ncharsize (page size is 2K, 4K, 8K or 16K)	UNIVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ pagesize/@@unicharsize, Unicode
Informix	NVARCHAR(n,r), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 255, LVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32739	TEXT, 2G, CLOB, 4T
HP Neoview	NVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ (32708 - size of other columns)
Ingres	NVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 16000, Unicode - UTF-8	LONG NVARCHAR, 2G, Unicode - UTF-8

Related Data Types in SQL Server

Data Types
Fixed-length Character Data	CHAR(n)	NCHAR(n)
Variable-length Character Data	VARCHAR(n)
Character Large Objects	TEXT	NTEXT

All Data Types

Oracle

SQL Server

IBM DB2

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Sybase ASE

Sybase ASA

Informix DS

Teradata

HP Neoview

Interbase/Firebird

Ingres