Applications that use the database should also configure their connection to the server each time they connect. To create a MySQL database which uses the utf8mb4 character set: Configure MySQL server with the charactersetserverutf8mb4 option. CREATE DATABASE mydb CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8generalci Tables created in the database use utf8 and utf8generalci by default for any character columns. To create a MySQL database which uses the utf8mb4 character set: So, it is recommended to use MySQL version 5.5.3 or later and MySQL connector/J (jdbc driver) version 5.1.18 or later, and use the utf8mb4 character set. mysql -u root -p -default-character-setutf8 wordpress < wordpress.sql Performing the actual. The default is UTF8, the standard charset for modern data which supports all internet-friendly languages. So, it is recommended to use MySQL version 5.5.3 or later and MySQL connector/J (jdbc driver) version 5.1.18 or later, and use the utf8mb4 character set. Setting the DBCHARSET and DBCOLLATE values in wp-config.php causes WordPress to create the database with the appropriate charset settings. In order to use this character set with java applications, the MySQL server should be configured with the character_set_server=utf8mb4 option and do NOT use thecharacterEncoding connection property. See for more details. This character tables is supported since MySQL 5.5.3. MySQL's utf8mb4 character table is a superset of BMP and contains also 4-bytes characters. 4-bytes characters are not included into this character table, and when one attempted to store such characters into a MySQL table, the Incorrect String Value error occurs. MySQL's utf8 character table contains characters from the Basic Multililingial Plane, also known as BMP - it is a subset of UTF8 characters which lengths are from 1 to 3 bytes. MySQL supports two kinds of UTF8 character sets: utf8 and utf8mb4.