How to Get Unique Values in a Column in Pandas DataFrame

This tutorial explains how to get unique values from a column in Pandas DataFrame, along with examples.

Find Unique Values in a Column

df['columnName'].unique()

Find Unique Values in All Columns

for column in df.columns:
    unique_values = df[column].unique()
    print(f"Unique values in column '{column}': {unique_values}")

Find Unique Values in Multiple Columns

# Loop through specified columns and find unique values
selected_columns  = ['Students', 'Section']

for column in selected_columns:
    unique_values = df[column].unique()
    print(f"Unique values in column '{column}': {unique_values}")

Find Unique Values Based on Multiple Columns

df.drop_duplicates(subset=['Students', 'Section'])

Sample DataFrame

Let's create a sample pandas DataFrame to explain examples in this tutorial.

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame({
    'Students':["Dave","Sam","Steve","Jon","Sam","Steve","Alex"],
    'Section':['A','A','A','B','B','A','B'],
    'Score':[91,92,76,78,82,87,69]
              })

Example 1 : Find Unique Values in a Column

In this example, we are using the dataframe named "df" and the column of interest is "Students" which contains duplicate values.

Method 1 : unique()

We are using the pandas unique() function to get unique values from a column in a dataframe.

df['Students'].unique()

Output

The unique() method returns a NumPy array of unique values.

array(['Dave', 'Sam', 'Steve', 'Jon', 'Alex'], dtype=object)

Incase you want the unique values of the column as a list, you can use the tolist() function.

df['Students'].unique().tolist()

Output

['Dave', 'Sam', 'Steve', 'Jon', 'Alex']

Method 2 : drop_duplicates()

The drop_duplicates() method is a DataFrame method that removes duplicate rows from the DataFrame and return unique values.

df.Students.drop_duplicates()

Output

The drop_duplicates() method returns a Series or DataFrame.


0     Dave
1      Sam
2    Steve
3      Jon
6     Alex
Name: Students, dtype: object

If you want all the columns corresponding to the unique values in the column "Students", you can use the subset parameter and specify specific columns for finding duplicates.

df.drop_duplicates(subset=['Students'])

Output

As shown in the output below, it returns a DataFrame with unique values in the "Students" column, keeping all other columns.


  Students Section  Score
0     Dave       A     91
1      Sam       A     92
2    Steve       A     76
3      Jon       B     78
6     Alex       B     69

Example 2 : Find Unique Values in All Columns

We can use loop to get unique values in all the columns in a dataframe one by one.

for column in df.columns:
    unique_values = df[column].unique()
    print(f"Unique values in column '{column}': {unique_values}")

Output


Unique values in column 'Students': ['Dave' 'Sam' 'Steve' 'Jon' 'Alex']
Unique values in column 'Section': ['A' 'B']
Unique values in column 'Score': [91 92 76 78 82 87 69]

Example 3 : Find Unique Values in Multiple Columns

We can specify multiple columns from which we want to extract unique values and then run a loop to get unique values of those columns one by one. In this case, we have two columns - 'Students' and 'Section' for fetching unique values.

selected_columns  = ['Students', 'Section']

# Loop through specified columns and find unique values
for column in selected_columns:
    unique_values = df[column].unique()
    print(f"Unique values in column '{column}': {unique_values}")

Output


Unique values in column 'Students': ['Dave' 'Sam' 'Steve' 'Jon' 'Alex']
Unique values in column 'Section': ['A' 'B']

Example 4 : Find Unique Values Based on Multiple Columns

If you want to remove duplicates based on multiple columns, you can specify the columns in the subset argument in the drop_duplicates() function.

df.drop_duplicates(subset=['Students', 'Section'])

Output

In the output below, you will notice that only "Steve" appears once, and the duplicate has been removed.


  Students Section  Score
0     Dave       A     91
1      Sam       A     92
2    Steve       A     76
3      Jon       B     78
4      Sam       B     82
6     Alex       B     69

Example 5 : Count Unique Values

To count the number of unique values, we can use the nunique() function.

# Count Unique Values in a Column
df['Students'].nunique()   

# Count Unique Values in Multiple Columns
df[['Students', 'Section']].nunique()

# Count Unique Values in All Columns
df.nunique()

Example 6 : Find and Sort Unique Values

If you want to sort the unique values from the 'Students' column, you can use the unique() method and then apply the sorted() function to the result.

sorted(df['Students'].unique())

Output

['Alex', 'Dave', 'Jon', 'Sam', 'Steve']

About Author:
Deepanshu Bhalla

Deepanshu founded ListenData with a simple objective - Make analytics easy to understand and follow. He has over 10 years of experience in data science. During his tenure, he worked with global clients in various domains like Banking, Insurance, Private Equity, Telecom and HR.

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