In statistics, the mode is the value that appears most frequently in a set of data values). It is one of the three measures of central tendency, along with the mean and median. The mode is useful when examining categorical data, such as models of cars or flavors of soda, for which a mathematical average median value based on ordering cannot be calculated. The numerical value of the mode is the same as that of the mean and median in a normal distribution, but it may be very different in highly skewed distributions).

To calculate the mode, one needs to put all the numbers in a given set in order and count how many times each number appears in the set. The number that appears most often is the mode. If a set of data has one mode, it is unimodal. If it has more than one mode, it is multimodal. If no value appears more than once, there is no mode.

Unlike mean and median, the concept of mode also makes sense for "nominal data" (i.e., not consisting of numerical values in the case of mean, or even of ordered values in the case of median). For example, taking a sample of Korean family names, one might find that "Kim" occurs more often than any other name. Then "Kim" would be the mode of the sample).