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The first thing WordPress does is check that all the files it needs are present. Next, it collects the default settings, as defined by the blog administrator, from the database. This includes things like the number of posts to display per page, whether commenting is enabled, and the like. Once these defaults are established, WordPress checks to see what the user asked for. This information is used to determine which posts to fetch from the database.

If the user didn’t ask for a specific post, category, page, or date, WordPress uses the previously collected default values to determine which posts to prepare for the user. For example, if the blog administrator has selected to display 5 posts per page in Administration > Settings > Reading, then WordPress will fetch the five most recent posts from the database. If the user did ask for a specific post, category, page, or date, then WordPress will use that information to specify which post(s) to fetch from the database.