How to get first N rows of Pandas DataFrame?

Pandas DataFrame – Get First N Rows – head()

To get the first N rows of a Pandas DataFrame, use the function pandas.DataFrame.head(). You can pass an optional integer that represents the first N rows. If you do not pass any number, it returns the first 5 rows. Meaning, the default N is 5.

Examples

1. Get first three rows in DataFrame

In this example, we will get the first 3 rows of the DataFrame.

import pandas as pd

# Initialize a dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame(
	[[21, 72, 67],
	[23, 78, 62],
	[32, 74, 56],
	[73, 88, 67],
	[32, 74, 56],
	[43, 78, 69],
	[32, 74, 54],
	[52, 54, 76]],
	columns=['a', 'b', 'c'])

# Get first 3 rows
df1 = df.head(3)

# Print the dataframe
print(df1)

Output

2. Get first few rows of DataFrame

In this example, we will not pass any number to the function head(). By default, head() function returns first 5 rows.

import pandas as pd

# Initialize a dataframe
df = pd.DataFrame(
	[[21, 72, 67],
	[23, 78, 62],
	[32, 74, 56],
	[73, 88, 67],
	[32, 74, 56],
	[43, 78, 69],
	[32, 74, 54],
	[52, 54, 76]],
	columns=['a', 'b', 'c'])

# Get first default number of rows
df1 = df.head()

# Print the dataframe
print(df1)

Output

Summary

In this Pandas Tutorial, we extracted the first N rows of Pandas DataFrame, using pandas.DataFrame.head() method, with the help of well detailed Python example programs.