Python: Find the most common element of a given list

Last update on April 21 2025 12:55:59 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

15. Find the Most Common Element in a List

Write a Python program to find the most common element in a given list.

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# Import the Counter class from the collections module
from collections import Counter

# Create a list 'language' containing programming language names
language = ['PHP', 'PHP', 'Python', 'PHP', 'Python', 'JS', 'Python', 'Python', 'PHP', 'Python']

# Print a message to indicate the display of the original list
print("Original list:")

# Print the content of the 'language' list
print(language)

# Create a Counter object 'cnt' to count the occurrences of each language in the list
cnt = Counter(language)

# Print a message to indicate the display of the most common element in the list
print("\nMost common element of the said list:")

# Find and print the most common element (programming language) in the list
# Note: In this case, it returns the first most common element
print(cnt.most_common(1)[0][0])

Sample Output:

Original list:
['PHP', 'PHP', 'Python', 'PHP', 'Python', 'JS', 'Python', 'Python', 'PHP', 'Python']

Most common element of the said list:
Python

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a Python program to identify the most frequent element in a list using collections.Counter.
Write a Python program to iterate through a list and determine which element appears the most, then return that element and its count.
Write a Python program to use a dictionary to count occurrences and then print the element with the highest frequency.
Write a Python program to implement a function that returns the most common element, handling ties by returning the smallest element.

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