# Use CTAS and INSERT INTO to create Amazon Ion tables
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You can use the `CREATE TABLE AS SELECT` (CTAS) and `INSERT INTO` statements to copy or insert data from a table into a new table in Amazon Ion format in Athena.

In a CTAS query, specify `format='ION'` in the `WITH` clause, as in the following example.

```
CREATE TABLE new_table
WITH (format='ION')
AS SELECT * from existing_table
```

By default, Athena serializes Amazon Ion results in [Ion binary format](https://amzn.github.io/ion-docs/docs/binary.html), but you can also use text format. To use text format, specify `ion_encoding = 'TEXT'` in the CTAS `WITH` clause, as in the following example.

```
CREATE TABLE new_table
WITH (format='ION', ion_encoding = 'TEXT')
AS SELECT * from existing_table
```

For more information about Amazon Ion specific properties in the CTAS `WITH` clause, see [Amazon Ion properties for the CTAS WITH clause](#ion-serde-ctas-with-clause-properties).

## Amazon Ion properties for the CTAS WITH clause
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In a CTAS query, you can use the `WITH` clause to specify the Amazon Ion format and optionally specify the Amazon Ion encoding and/or write compression algorithm to use.

**format**  
You can specify the `ION` keyword as the format option in the `WITH` clause of a CTAS query. When you do so, the table that you create uses the format that you specify for `IonInputFormat` for reads, and it serializes data in the format that you specify for `IonOutputFormat`.  
The following example specifies that the CTAS query use Amazon Ion format.  

```
WITH (format='ION')
```

**ion\$1encoding**  
Optional  
Default: `BINARY`  
Values: `BINARY`, `TEXT`  
Specifies whether data is serialized in Amazon Ion binary format or Amazon Ion text format. The following example specifies Amazon Ion text format.  

```
WITH (format='ION', ion_encoding='TEXT')
```

**write\$1compression**  
Optional  
Default: `GZIP`  
Values: `GZIP`, `ZSTD`, `BZIP2`, `SNAPPY`, `NONE`  
Specifies the compression algorithm to use to compress output files.  
The following example specifies that the CTAS query write its output in Amazon Ion format using the [Zstandard](https://facebook.github.io/zstd/) compression algorithm.  

```
WITH (format='ION', write_compression = 'ZSTD')       
```
For information about using compression in Athena, see [Use compression in Athena](compression-formats.md). 

For information about other CTAS properties in Athena, see [CTAS table properties](create-table-as.md#ctas-table-properties).