Python | Pandas DataFrame.nsmallest() (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

Python is a great language for doing data analysis, primarily because of the fantastic ecosystem of data-centric python packages. Pandas is one of those packages and makes importing and analyzing data much easier.
Pandas nsmallest() method is used to get n least values from a data frame or a series.

Syntax: DataFrame.nsmallest(n, columns, keep='first')
Parameters:
n: int, Number of values to select
columns: Column to check for least values or user can select column while calling too. [For example: data["age"].nsmallest(3) OR data.nsmallest(3, "age")]
keep: object to set which value to select if duplicates exit. Options are 'first' or 'last'.

To download the CSV file used, Click Here.
Example #1: Extracting Least 5 values
In this example least 5 values are extracted and then compared to the other sorted by the sort_values() function.
NaN values are removed before trying this method.
Refer sort_values and dropna().

Python `

importing pandas package

import pandas as pd

making data frame from csv file

data = pd.read_csv("employees.csv")

removing null values

data.dropna(inplace = True)

extracting least 5

least5 = data.nsmallest(5, "Salary")

display

least5

`

Output:

Example #2: Sorting by sort_values()

Python `

importing pandas package

import pandas as pd

making data frame from csv file

data = pd.read_csv("employees.csv")

removing null values

data.dropna(inplace = True)

sorting in ascending order

data.sort_values("Salary", ascending = True, inplace = True)

displaying top 5 values

data.head()

`

Output:
As shown in the output image, the values returned by both functions are similar.