How to select records without duplicate on just one field in SQL?

Try this one

SELECT country_id, country_title 
FROM (SELECT country_id, country_title,
CASE
WHEN country_title=LAG(country_title, 1, 0) OVER(ORDER BY country_title) THEN 1
ELSE 0
END AS "Duplicates"
FROM tbl_countries)
WHERE "Duplicates"=0;

For using DISTINCT keyword, you can use it like this:

SELECT DISTINCT 
    (SELECT min(ti.Country_id) 
     FROM tbl_countries ti 
     WHERE t.country_title = ti.country_title) As Country_id
    , country_title
FROM 
    tbl_countries t

---

For using ROW_NUMBER(), you can use it like this:

SELECT 
    Country_id, country_title 
FROM (
    SELECT *, ROW_NUMBER() OVER (PARTITION BY country_title ORDER BY Country_id) As rn
    FROM tbl_countries) t
WHERE rn = 1

---

Also with using LEFT JOIN, you can use this:

SELECT t1.Country_id, t1.country_title
FROM tbl_countries t1
    LEFT OUTER JOIN
    tbl_countries t2 ON t1.country_title = t2.country_title AND t1.Country_id > t2.Country_id
WHERE
    t2.country_title IS NULL

---

And with using of EXISTS, you can try:

SELECT t1.Country_id, t1.country_title
FROM tbl_countries t1   
WHERE
    NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1 
                FROM tbl_countries t2 
                WHERE t1.country_title = t2.country_title AND t1.Country_id > t2.Country_id)

Try this:

SELECT MIN(id) AS id, title
FROM tbl_countries
GROUP BY title

DISTINCT is the keyword
For me your query is correct

Just try to do this first

SELECT DISTINCT title,id FROM tbl_countries

Later on you can try with order by.