How to Get List Length in Python

John on March 23, 2021

A list in Python is a countable collection of elements. Counting the total elements in a list is a common programming task to determine how many indexes can be accessed among other things.

In this tutorial, we will learn how to get the total number of items in a Python list.

Python len() Function

To get the length of a list, use the Python len() function and pass the list to evaluate as the first argument.

items = ['apple','orange','peach']

print(len(items))

3

Get the Length of Each Element in a List

The Python len() function can be used on an iterable. Since strings are iterables we can get the length of each string in a list using a for loop like this:

items = ['apple','orange','peach']

for i in items:
   print(len(i))

5
6
5

If the list contains mixed data types, such as numbers, convert them into strings using the Python str() function before getting their length:

items = ['apple','orange','peach',4, 6, 12]

for i in items:
   print(len(str(i)))

5
6
5
1
1
2

Getting the Length of Multidimensional Lists in Python

To get the total length of a multidimensional list, get the length of the list and multiply it by the total length of the nested lists:

items = [[1,2], [1,2,3], [1,2,3,4]]

rows = len(items)
columns = 0

for i in items:
   columns += len(i)

print(rows * columns)

27