Pandas Introduction & Tutorials for Beginners

This article introduces you to Pandas, a data analysis library of tools that’s built upon Python. We will:

• Look briefly at the tool
• Show you how to perform basic operations

(This tutorial is part of our Pandas Guide. Use the right-hand menu to navigate.)

What is pandas?

A Python Pandas dataframe is more than an array data structure. Pandas is a powerful tool that lets you:

• Convert JSON, CSV, array, dictionaries, and other data to row and column format
• Work with them using names instead of indexes (you can still opt for indexes)

In short, Pandas is sort of like a spreadsheet, but one you work with using code, not Microsoft Excel. The biggest benefits:

• Pandas makes extremely complicated data transformations easy and natural.
• It includes a wealth of math, analytics, and other functions.

How pandas works

Pandas is built on top of NumPy and Matplotlib. So, Pandas can:

• Efficiently work with large n-dimensional arrays (NumPy)
• Take slices and transpose those into different shapes (NumPy)
• Draw charts (Matplotlib)

NumPy is the workhouse for most Python machine learning software development kits (SDKs). Since Pandas extends NumPy, it also supports machine learning operations.