Get First N Rows of DataFrame in Pandas

Get First N Rows of DataFrame

To get the first N rows of a DataFrame in Pandas, call head() method on this DataFrame and pass the integer value representing the number of rows, N.

By default, head() method returns first five rows of the DataFrame.

In this tutorial, we will learn the syntax of DataFrame.head() method and to use this method to get the first N rows of this DataFrame.

Syntax

The syntax of pandas DataFrame.head() method is

DataFrame.head(n=5)

where

Parameter	Value	Description
n	int. default value is 5.	Number of rows to select from this DataFrame.

Return Value

DataFrame.

Examples

Get First Five Rows of DataFrame

If we do not pass any integer value as argument to head() method, the method returns the first five rows.

In the following program, we take a DataFrame, and get the first five rows of it using head() method.

Example.py

import pandas as pd

data = {'col_1': [10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40], 'col_2': [45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75]}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

result = df.head()

print('Original DataFrame')
print(df)
print('\nFirst Five Rows of DataFrame')
print(result)

Output

Original DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50
2     20     55
3     25     60
4     30     65
5     35     70
6     40     75

First Five Rows of DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50
2     20     55
3     25     60
4     30     65

Get First Two Rows of DataFrame

Now let us get only the first two rows of DataFrame. Pass the value 2 as argument to head() method.

Example.py

import pandas as pd

data = {'col_1': [10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40], 'col_2': [45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75]}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

result = df.head(2)

print('Original DataFrame')
print(df)
print('\nFirst Two Rows of DataFrame')
print(result)

Output

Original DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50
2     20     55
3     25     60
4     30     65
5     35     70
6     40     75

First Two Rows of DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50

Viewing the first n lines (three in this case)

DataFrame

Example.py

>>> df.head(3)
      animal
0  alligator
1        bee
2     falcon

Output

Negative Value for N

If we give negative value as argument to head(), then those number of rows are removed from the tail of this DataFrame in the result.

Example.py

import pandas as pd

data = {'col_1': [10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40], 'col_2': [45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75]}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

result = df.head(-4)

print('Original DataFrame')
print(df)
print('\Last Four Rows Removed from DataFrame')
print(result)

Output

Original DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50
2     20     55
3     25     60
4     30     65
5     35     70
6     40     75
\Last Four Rows Removed from DataFrame
   col_1  col_2
0     10     45
1     15     50
2     20     55

Conclusion

In this Pandas Tutorial, we learned the syntax of DataFrame.head() method and how to use this method to get the first N rows of this DataFrame.