Introduction to Pandas

Pandas is Python's most popular library for data analysis and manipulation. It provides powerful, flexible data structures that make working with structured data intuitive and efficient.

What is Pandas?

Pandas provides two main data structures:

• Series: A one-dimensional labeled array
• DataFrame: A two-dimensional labeled table (like a spreadsheet or SQL table)

Why Use Pandas?

Pandas excels at:

• Loading data from various file formats (CSV, Excel, JSON, SQL)
• Cleaning and transforming messy data
• Filtering, sorting, and grouping data
• Performing statistical analysis
• Handling missing values

Exercise: Your First DataFrame

Key Points

• Pandas is the standard library for data analysis in Python
• DataFrames are like spreadsheets or SQL tables
• Series are single columns of data
• Pandas is pre-loaded with import pandas as pd