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Python List count() Function

The List count() method returns the number of times the specified element appears in the list.

Syntax​

my_list.count(element)

count() Parameters​

Python List count() method parameters::

ParameterConditionDescription
itemRequiredAny item (of type string, list, set, etc.) you want to search for.

count() Return Value​

Python List count() function returns

Examples​

Example 1: Return the number of occurrences of an Item in a List​

For example, let's count number of occurrences of green:

my_list = ['red', 'green', 'blue']
print(my_list.count('green')) # Output: 1

output

1

For example, let's count number of occurrences of number 9:

my_list = [1, 9, 1, 9, 2, 7, 3, 9, 0]
print(my_list.count(9)) # Output: 3

output

3

Example 2: Count Multiple Items​

If you want to count multiple items in a list, you can call count() in a loop.

items = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'b', 'b', 'a', 'a', 'c']
counts = {}

for item in set(items):
    counts[item] = items.count(item)

print(counts) # Output: {'b': 3, 'a': 3, 'c': 2}

output

{'b': 3, 'a': 3, 'c': 2}

However, this approach requires a separate pass over the list for every count() call: catastrophic for performance!. Instead, it is better to use couter() method from class collections.

For example, count occurrences of all the unique items:

my_list = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'b', 'b', 'a', 'a', 'c']

from collections import Counter

print(Counter(my_list)) # Output: Counter({'a': 3, 'b': 3, 'c': 2})

output

Counter({'a': 3, 'b': 3, 'c': 2})

Example 3: Check if there are duplicates with count()​

You can use count() method to check if a certain element appears more than once in the list, i.e. count() returns a number bigger than 1.

my_list = ['apple', 'banana', 'apple', 'orange', 'banana']
for item in my_list:
    if my_list.count(item) > 1:
        print(f"{item} is duplicated.")

output

apple is duplicated.
banana is duplicated.
apple is duplicated.
banana is duplicated.

Example 4: Count the number of occurrences of a character or a word in a String​

You can use count() method to get the number of occurrences of a character or a word in a string.

By converting the string to a list or iterating through the string, you can count the occurrences of any character or substring

text = "Hello world!"
char_to_count = 'l'
print(f"Occurrences of '{char_to_count}':", text.count(char_to_count))

output

Occurrences of 'l': 3

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