Pandas is a library built on the Python programming language. You can use it to analyze and manipulate data.

A dataframe is two-dimensional data structure in Pandas that organizes data in a tabular format with rows and columns.

In this article, you'll learn how to get the number of rows in a dataframe using the following:

  • The len() function.
  • The shape attribute.
  • The index attribute.
  • The axes attribuite.

How to Get the Number of Rows in a Dataframe Using the len() Function

You can use the len() function to return the length of an object. With a dataframe, the function returns the number of rows.

Consider the dataframe below:

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df
name age
0 John 2
1 Jane 10
2 Jade 3

In the example above, we created a dataframe with three rows — row 0, 1, and 2.

You can use the len() function to verify the number of rows: 

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = len(df)

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3

In the code above, we passed the dataframe as a parameter to the len() function and stored it in a variable called num_of_rows: 

num_of_rows = len(df)

When num_of_rows was printed, we got a value of 3 (the number of rows).

How to Get the Number of Rows in a Dataframe Using the shape Attribute

The shape attribute returns a tuple with the number of rows and columns in a dataframe.

Here's an example using the same dataframe as in the last section: 

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = df.shape

print(num_of_rows)
# (3, 2)

In the code above, a tuple — (3, 2) — was returned when we used the shape attribute on the dataframe: df.shape.

The first value, 3, is the number of rows in the dataframe while the second value, 2, is the number of columns.

Since we're only interested in the number of rows, we can extract just that value using its index in the tuple (remember that index numbers start at 0). That is:

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = df.shape[0]

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3

Now we're getting just the number of rows using its index in the tuple: df.shape[0].

How to Get the Number of Rows in a Dataframe Using the index Attribute

You can use the index attribute to access the number of elements in a dataframe, which corresponds with the number of rows.

You can do this in two different ways:

  • Using the index attribute's size property.
  • Passing the index property as a parameter to the len() function.

Here are examples to explain the methods above: 

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = df.index.size

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3

In the example above, we accessed the number of rows in the dataframe using df.index.size.

Without the size property, you'd get a result like this: RangeIndex(start=0, stop=3, step=1).

  • start denotes the first index number.
  • stop denotes the number of rows in the dataframe.
  • step denotes the way indexes are incremented (indexes are increased by 1 in our case).

So the size property is way of specifying that you're only interested in the number of elements in the dataframe.

Here's another example that uses the len() function: 

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = len(df.index)

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3

In the code above, we passed df.index as a parameter to the len() function. This returns the number of rows in the dataframe.

The difference between this example and the previous one is that we're not attaching the size property to df.index. Instead, we're using df.index as the len() function's parameter.

How to Get the Number of Rows in a Dataframe Using the axes Attribute

The axes attribute returns the value as the index attribute: RangeIndex(start=0, stop=3, step=1).

Similarly, you can return the number of rows using either the size property or the len() function: 

import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = df.axes[0].size

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3
import pandas as pd

data = {
  "name": ["John", "Jane", "Jade"],
  "age": [2, 10, 3]
}

df = pd.DataFrame(data)
df

num_of_rows = len(df.axes[0])

print(f"The number of rows is {num_of_rows}")
# The number of rows is 3

The logic in the two code blocks above is the same as those in the last section:

  • df.index.size returns the number of elements/rows in the dataframe.
  • len(df.index) returns the number of rows in the dataframe.

Summary

In this article, we talked about dataframes in Pandas. They are two-dimensional data structures that organize data in rows and columns.

We saw different methods for getting the number of rows in a dataframe. We discussed the following methods along with code examples to show their application:

  • The len() function.
  • The shape attribute.
  • The index attribute.
  • The axes attribuite.

Happy coding! You can learn more about Python on my blog.