How to Check if value exists in a MySQL database

preferred way, using MySQLi extension:

$mysqli = new mysqli(SERVER, DBUSER, DBPASS, DATABASE);
$result = $mysqli->query("SELECT id FROM mytable WHERE city = 'c7'");
if($result->num_rows == 0) {
     // row not found, do stuff...
} else {
    // do other stuff...
}
$mysqli->close();

deprecated:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT id FROM mytable WHERE city = 'c7'");
if(mysql_num_rows($result) == 0) {
     // row not found, do stuff...
} else {
    // do other stuff...
}

For Exact Match

"SELECT * FROM yourTable WHERE city = 'c7'"

For Pattern / Wildcard Search

"SELECT * FROM yourTable WHERE city LIKE '%c7%'"

Of course you can change '%c7%' to '%c7' or 'c7%' depending on how you want to search it. For exact match, use first query example.

PHP

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM yourTable WHERE city = 'c7'");
$matchFound = mysql_num_rows($result) > 0 ? 'yes' : 'no';
echo $matchFound;

You can also use if condition there.