How to Delete a Column From a Pandas DataFrame in Python

Python is a great programming/data science/statistical language for doing data analysis having it’s huge data-centric packages. Pandas is one of those data-centric packages for analyzing data much in easier way.

Pandas provides data analysts/data scientist different options to delete a column using .drop() method. Columns can be removed using index label or column name using this method. In this article, I’ll show you various approaches to delete a column from a Pandas DataFrame in Python. I have an another article How to Create a Pandas DataFrame in Python, where you will learn how to create a Pandas DataFrame in Python.

Syntax of drop Method:
DataFrame.drop(labels=None, axis=0, index=None, columns=None, level=None, inplace=False, errors=’raise’)

Parameters of drop Method:
labels: String or list of strings referring row or column name.
axis: int or string value, 0 ‘index’ for Rows and 1 ‘columns’ for Columns.
index or columns: Single label or list. index or columns are an alternative to axis and cannot be used together.
level: Used to specify level in case data frame is having multiple level index.
inplace: Makes changes in original Data Frame if True.
errors: Ignores error if any value from the list doesn’t exists and drops rest of the values when errors = ‘ignore’

Return Type of drop Method: DataFrame with dropped values
For this tutorial, create a sample DataFrame as below:

       id      name  math_score
0  202301    Minhaj          92
1  202302   Ridhwan          86
2  202303   Tanveer          76
3  202304  Sharodia          89
4  202305      Alve          99
5  202306   Intisar          99

Now, let’s see some examples to delete a column from a Pandas DataFrame.

Option-1: Using drop method and labels, axis, inplace parameters

df.drop(labels=["math_score"],axis=1,inplace=True)
print(df)

Output:

       id      name
0  202301    Minhaj
1  202302   Ridhwan
2  202303   Tanveer
3  202304  Sharodia
4  202305      Alve
5  202306   Intisar

Option-2: Using drop method and labels & axis parameter with multiple columns

df=df.drop(labels=["name","math_score"],axis=1)
print(df)
Output:

       id
0  202301
1  202302
2  202303
3  202304
4  202305
5  202306

Option-3: Using drop method and columns, axis  parameters (Multiple Column Name) 
df=df.drop(columns=["name","math_score"],axis=1)
print(df)

Output:

       id
0  202301
1  202302
2  202303
3  202304
4  202305
5  202306

Option-4: Using drop method and columns, column index, axis parameters (Single Index) 
df=df.drop(columns=df.columns[2],axis=1)
print(df)

Output:

       id      name
0  202301    Minhaj
1  202302   Ridhwan
2  202303   Tanveer
3  202304  Sharodia
4  202305      Alve
5  202306   Intisar

Option-5: Using drop method, columns, column index, axis parameters (Multiple Index) 
df=df.drop(columns=df.columns[[1,2]],axis=1)
print(df)

Output:

       id
0  202301
1  202302
2  202303
3  202304
4  202305
5  202306

In this tutorial, I tried to brief how to delete a column from Pandas DataFrame in Python. Hope you have enjoyed the tutorial. If you want to get updated, like my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LearningBigDataAnalytics and stay connected.