Python: Find the item with maximum frequency in a given list

Last update on July 05 2025 07:25:01 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

20. Find the Item with the Highest Frequency in a List

Write a Python program to find the item with the highest frequency in a given list.

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

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

# Define a function 'max_occurrences' that finds the item with the maximum frequency in a list
def max_occurrences(nums):
    # Create a defaultdict 'dict' to count the occurrences of items in 'nums'
    dict = defaultdict(int)
    
    # Loop through the items in 'nums' and increment their counts in 'dict'
    for i in nums:
        dict[i] += 1
    
    # Find the item with the maximum count using 'max' and a key function
    result = max(dict.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])
    
    # Return the result
    return result

# Create a list 'nums' with integer values
nums = [2, 3, 8, 4, 7, 9, 8, 2, 6, 5, 1, 6, 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 6, 9, 1, 2]

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

# Print the content of 'nums'
print(nums)

# Print a message to indicate the display of the item with the maximum frequency
print("\nItem with the maximum frequency of the said list:")

# Call the 'max_occurrences' function and print the result
print(max_occurrences(nums)) 

Sample Output:

Original list:
[2, 3, 8, 4, 7, 9, 8, 2, 6, 5, 1, 6, 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, 6, 9, 1, 2]

Item with maximum frequency of the said list:
(2, 5)

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a Python program to determine the most frequent element in a list using collections.Counter and output the element along with its count.
• Write a Python program to use a dictionary to count list elements and then identify the key with the maximum value.
• Write a Python program to iterate over a list and compare frequencies to find and print the item that appears the most.
• Write a Python program to implement a function that returns a tuple (element, count) representing the highest frequency item in a list.

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