The enumerate() Function

When looping through a sequence like a list, you often want both the item itself and its position in the list. A standard for loop, such as for city in travel_list:, gives you just the value—no information about its index. The enumerate() function solves this by yielding pairs of (index, value) tuples on each iteration:

index: the 0-based position of the item in the sequence;
value: the element at that position.

You can use two variables in the loop—for index, value in enumerate(sequence):—to unpack these pairs directly. This makes your code cleaner and avoids manually tracking the index with a counter variable.

You can also use the optional start parameter to set the starting index. For example, enumerate(sequence, start=1) will number the first item as 1 instead of 0. This is helpful when you want numbering to match real-world lists or user-facing labels.

The syntax for using enumerate() is:

for index, value in enumerate(sequence):
    # Your code here

You can also specify a starting value for the index using the optional start parameter:

for index, value in enumerate(sequence, start=0):
    # Your code here

By default, start=0, so indexing begins at 0;
You can set start=1 if you want the index to begin at 1 instead of 0.

Here is an example using start=1:


              123
            
cities = ['Monako', 'Luxemburg', 'Liverpool']
for index, city in enumerate(cities, start=1):
    print(f"City {index}: {city}")

index: refers to the position of an element in the list, starting from the value you set with start;
value: refers to the actual element at a given index.

Let's apply enumerate() to our travel_list to print each city along with its index:


              12345
            
travel_list = ['Monako', 'Luxemburg', 'Liverpool', 'Barcelona', 'Munchen']

# Printing all cities with their indexes
for index, city in enumerate(travel_list):
    print(str(index) + ' ' + city)

Note

You can use str() to convert a number into text before combining it with a string.

Everything was clear?

Thanks for your feedback!

Section 1. Chapter 6

single

Swipe to show menu

When looping through a sequence like a list, you often want both the item itself and its position in the list. A standard for loop, such as for city in travel_list:, gives you just the value—no information about its index. The enumerate() function solves this by yielding pairs of (index, value) tuples on each iteration:

index: the 0-based position of the item in the sequence;
value: the element at that position.

You can use two variables in the loop—for index, value in enumerate(sequence):—to unpack these pairs directly. This makes your code cleaner and avoids manually tracking the index with a counter variable.

You can also use the optional start parameter to set the starting index. For example, enumerate(sequence, start=1) will number the first item as 1 instead of 0. This is helpful when you want numbering to match real-world lists or user-facing labels.

The syntax for using enumerate() is:

for index, value in enumerate(sequence):
    # Your code here

You can also specify a starting value for the index using the optional start parameter:

for index, value in enumerate(sequence, start=0):
    # Your code here

By default, start=0, so indexing begins at 0;
You can set start=1 if you want the index to begin at 1 instead of 0.

Here is an example using start=1:


              123
            
cities = ['Monako', 'Luxemburg', 'Liverpool']
for index, city in enumerate(cities, start=1):
    print(f"City {index}: {city}")

index: refers to the position of an element in the list, starting from the value you set with start;
value: refers to the actual element at a given index.

Let's apply enumerate() to our travel_list to print each city along with its index:


              12345
            
travel_list = ['Monako', 'Luxemburg', 'Liverpool', 'Barcelona', 'Munchen']

# Printing all cities with their indexes
for index, city in enumerate(travel_list):
    print(str(index) + ' ' + city)

Note

You can use str() to convert a number into text before combining it with a string.

Task

Swipe to start coding

You're organizing your travel wishlist and want to add a short label to each country that includes its position in the list.

Use the enumerate() function to loop through the list of countries.
For each country, create a string that says something like: "Destination 1: France".
Store these strings in a new list called travel_rankings.

Solution

Switch to desktop for real-world practiceContinue from where you are using one of the options below

Everything was clear?

Thanks for your feedback!

Section 1. Chapter 6

single

Ask AI

Ask anything or try one of the suggested questions to begin our chat