Show tables like "year%"> = 2010

Oh, this is a bad scheme to work on. Ultimately, your best bet is to end these date-dependent names. However, you can get it from information_schema:

SELECT
  TABLE_NAME
FROM information_schema.TABLES
WHERE
  TABLE_SCHEMA='your_database_name'
  /* LEFT() should be faster than LIKE */
  AND LEFT(TABLE_NAME, 4)='year'
  /* The 4 char substring in the middle of the table name is >= 2 years ago */
  /* Use YEAR(NOW()) to get the current year */
  AND MID(TABLE_NAME, 5, 4) >= (YEAR(NOW()) - 2)

Update:

To show tables between 2 years earlier and the current year, use:

  AND MID(TABLE_NAME, 5, 4) BETWEEN (YEAR(NOW()) - 2) AND YEAR(NOW())

Update 2 This should work exactly as you ask:

mysql> SELECT yearstring, MID(yearstring, 5, 4) BETWEEN (YEAR(NOW()) - 2) AND YEAR(NOW()) FROM tmp;
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| yearstring | MID(yearstring, 5, 4) BETWEEN (YEAR(NOW()) - 2) AND YEAR(NOW()) |
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
| year201001 |                                                               1 |
| year201005 |                                                               1 |
| year201205 |                                                               1 |
| year201301 |                                                               0 |
| year201112 |                                                               1 |
| year201304 |                                                               0 |
| year200912 |                                                               0 |
| year200901 |                                                               0 |
+------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------+