How to use count and group by at the same select statement

Question

This will do what you want (list of towns, with the number of users in each):

SELECT `town`, COUNT(`town`)
FROM `user`
GROUP BY `town`;

You can use most aggregate functions when using a GROUP BY statement
(COUNT, MAX, COUNT DISTINCT etc.)

Update:
You can declare a variable for the number of users and save the result there, and then SELECT the value of the variable:

DECLARE @numOfUsers INT
SET @numOfUsers = SELECT COUNT(*) FROM `user`;

SELECT DISTINCT `town`, @numOfUsers FROM `user`;