python pandas print element of dataframe

Question

I have a pandas data frame named country_codes:

>>> country_codes.head(3)

       COUNTRY FIPS ISO2 ISO3

0  Afghanistan   AF   AF  AFG

1      Albania   AL   AL  ALB

2      Algeria   AG   DZ  DZA

given a particular fips code:

>>> fips = 'RS'

I select the country name corresponding to that fips code:

>>> country = country_codes[country_codes['FIPS']==fips]['COUNTRY']

and print it:

>>> print(country)

201    Russia

Name: COUNTRY, dtype: object

I want to use that country name in the title of a matplotlib plot. I want the country name only. I do not want the index number or the line that says Name: COUNTRY, dtype: object. How do I get the name only?

Solution 1

You're getting a series from indexing the dataframe

>>> country = country_codes[country_codes['FIPS']==fips]['COUNTRY']
>>> type(country)
<class 'pandas.core.series.Series'>

For a Series, selection by position:

>>> country.iloc[0]
'Russia'

Solution 2

I think create a series with FIPS as the key and COUNTRY as the value will make the code simpler:

fips = pd.Series(df["COUNTRY"].values, index=df["FIPS"])

then you can get the country by:

fips["AL"]

Comments

[Barry Andersen]

in other words, I should say country = country_codes[country_codes['FIPS']==fips]'COUNTRY'].iloc[0] >>> print(country) Russia right?

[Andy Hayden]

Note: this assumes that country codes are unique (though probably a safe assumption).

[Weston]

This is the way to do it. It is dramatically faster code than navigating the dataframe. One alternate approach to getting the 'COUNTRY' Series indexed by 'FIPS' would be df.set_index('FIPS')['COUNTRY']