I created a nontemporary table, but named it "temp" (because, after messing around with it, I was going to drop it). The table name on create was changed to "temporary". But the name "temp" still works in some contexts (apparently all SQL) but not others (\d). See session history below. Is this by design? --Lee sql>CREATE TABLE geo_boundaries.temp (id int PRIMARY KEY, name text); operation successful (55.041ms) sql>SELECT * FROM geo_boundaries.temp; +----+------+ | id | name | +====+======+ +----+------+ 0 tuples (1.818ms) sql>INSERT INTO geo_boundaries.temp VALUES (1, 'name'); 1 affected row (16.073ms) sql>SELECT * FROM geo_boundaries.temp; +------+------+ | id | name | +======+======+ | 1 | name | +------+------+ 1 tuple (0.977ms) sql>\d geo_boundaries.temp table geo_boundaries.temp does not exist sql>\d TABLE geo_boundaries.states TABLE geo_boundaries.temporary sql>\d geo_boundaries.temporary CREATE TABLE "geo_boundaries"."temporary" ( "id" INTEGER NOT NULL, "name" CHARACTER LARGE OBJECT, CONSTRAINT "temporary_id_pkey" PRIMARY KEY ("id") ); sql>DROP TABLE geo_boundaries.temp; operation successful (21.538ms) sql>\d TABLE geo_boundaries.states sql> -- Lee Hachadoorian Assistant Professor in Geography, Dartmouth College http://geospatial.commons.gc.cuny.edu http://freecity.commons.gc.cuny.edu