Here are several ways to sample random rows per group in Pandas:

(1) random selection per group

df.groupby('continent').apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=3))

(2) random selection per group - different size

(df
    .groupby('continent')
    .apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=3, replace=True))
    .drop_duplicates()
)

(3) sample based on column

col = 'continent'
categories = list(df[col].dropna().unique())
for cat in categories:
    if df[df[col] == cat].shape[0] > 3:
   	 print(cat, end=' - ')
   	 display(df[df[col] == cat].sample(3, replace=True))

The result is shown below - getting N random samples per each group on:

Setup

In the post, we'll use the following DataFrame, available from library plotly.

To install plotly use pip install plotly. We will create DataFrame getting info for 2007 year:

import plotly.express as px
df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
cols = df.columns[:4]
df = df[cols]

DataFrame looks like:

country continent year lifeExp
11 Afghanistan Asia 2007 43.828
23 Albania Europe 2007 76.423
35 Algeria Africa 2007 72.301
47 Angola Africa 2007 42.731
59 Argentina Americas 2007 75.320

For simplicity we will work only with the first 4 columns.

1: Random selection per group

To do random selection per group in Pandas we can:

  • use groupby() on a column(s)
  • and use apply and sample methods:
df.groupby('continent').apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=1))

We get random country per each continent:

country continent year lifeExp
continent
Africa 1595 Uganda Africa 2007 51.542
Americas 1211 Peru Americas 2007 71.421
Asia 719 Indonesia Asia 2007 70.650
Europe 527 Finland Europe 2007 79.313
Oceania 71 Australia Oceania 2007 81.235

If we try to use large sample number we will get error:

ValueError: Cannot take a larger sample than population when 'replace=False'

We will solve this error in next section

sample by group - different size

If the groups have different sizes or some groups are smaller than the selected sample number we can use repetitions. To sample with repetition we need to pass replace=True to sample() method:

df.groupby('continent').apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=3, replace=True))

This will solve the error above:

country continent year lifeExp
continent
Africa 1547 Togo Africa 2007 58.420
347 Congo, Rep. Africa 2007 55.322
1571 Tunisia Africa 2007 73.923
Americas 251 Canada Americas 2007 80.653
287 Chile Americas 2007 78.553
251 Canada Americas 2007 80.653
Asia 1439 Sri Lanka Asia 2007 72.396
731 Iran Asia 2007 70.964
107 Bangladesh Asia 2007 64.062
Europe 527 Finland Europe 2007 79.313
407 Czech Republic Europe 2007 76.486
1283 Romania Europe 2007 72.476
Oceania 1103 New Zealand Oceania 2007 80.204
71 Australia Oceania 2007 81.235
1103 New Zealand Oceania 2007 80.204

Get unique samples per group

Downside is that we have repetitions in the groups with smaller items. Remove duplicated rows can be done by adding .drop_duplicates():

(df
    .groupby('continent')
    .apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=3, replace=True))
    .drop_duplicates()
)

This code shows the usage of Pandas chaining. It's easier to read and maintain.

Group by multiple columns and sample

To group by multiple columns and sample random values per each group in Pandas we can use similar code:

(df
    .groupby(['continent', 'year'])
    .apply(lambda x: x.sample(n=2, replace=True))
    .drop_duplicates()
)

The result is multi-index with samples from each group:

country continent year lifeExp
continent year
Africa 2007 1067 Namibia Africa 2007 52.906
923 Madagascar Africa 2007 59.443
Americas 2007 179 Brazil Americas 2007 72.390
1259 Puerto Rico Americas 2007 78.746
Asia 2007 1007 Mongolia Asia 2007 66.803
875 Lebanon Asia 2007 71.993
Europe 2007 1391 Slovenia Europe 2007 77.926
1091 Netherlands Europe 2007 79.762
Oceania 2007 71 Australia Oceania 2007 81.235
1103 New Zealand Oceania 2007 80.204

Random sample per group - for loop

If we need to add filtering or parsing logic we may use a for loop. In this way we may get different DataFrames for each sample group:

col = 'continent'
categories = list(df[col].dropna().unique())

for cat in categories:
    group_size = df[df[col] == cat].shape[0]
    print(cat, '-', group_size)
    if group_size >= 3:
   	 display(df[df[col] == cat].sample(3))
    else:
   	 display(df[df[col] == cat].sample(group_size))

The result is visible on the image below:

random-sample-per-group-in-pandas-python

Conclusion

In this article, we looked at different ways for sampling random items per group in Pandas and Python. We focused on equal sampling, but also covered sampling from groups with different sizes.

Finally we saw how to exclude, filter or parse some groups when doing random sampling. We briefly introduce Pandas chaining - a nice technique for writing better and more readable Pandas code.

Resources