Python Program to Find Largest Element in an Array (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 22 Oct, 2025

Given an array, we need to find the largest element in it.

**For example:

**Input : arr[] = {20, 10, 20, 4, 100}
**Output : 100

Let's explore different methods to find the largest element:

Using Built-in max() Function

Python has an inbuilt method max() which returns the maximum value among the arguments.

Python `

arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808] res = max(arr) print(res)

`

Using Iteration

This method manually traverse the array and update the largest element when a bigger element is found.

Python `

arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808] res = arr[0]

for i in range(1, len(arr)): if arr[i] > res: res = arr[i]

print(res)

`

Using reduce() Function

The reduce() function from functools can find the largest element by applying max cumulatively across the array.

Python `

from functools import reduce arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808] res = reduce(max, arr) print(res)

`

Using sort() Function

Here sort() function is used to sort the array. The largest element will be the last element of the sorted array.

Python `

arr = [10, 324, 45, 90, 9808] arr.sort() res = arr[-1] print(res)

`

Please refer complete article on Program to find largest element in an array for more details!

Using operator.gt()

Use the operator.gt() function to compare elements and find the largest element iteratively.

Python `

import operator arr = [2, 1, 7, 3, 0] res = 0

for i in arr: if operator.gt(i, res): res = i

print(res)

`

**Explanation: