How to Concatenate Two Lists in Python (with examples)

February 5, 2022

You can use either of the following templates in order to concatenate two lists in Python:

(1) Using the + operator:

list_one = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]
list_two = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]

concatenated_list = list_one + list_two
print(concatenated_list)

(2) Using extend:

list_one = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]
list_two = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]

list_one.extend(list_two)
print(list_one)

In the next section, you’ll see how to apply the above techniques in practice.

Steps to Concatenate Two Lists in Python

Step 1: Create two Lists

To begin with a simple example, let’s create two lists that contain string values:

list_one = ['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear']
list_two = ['Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

print(list_one)
print(list_two)

Run the code in Python, and you’ll get these two lists:

['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear']
['Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

Step 2: Concatenate the two Python Lists using the + operator

You can use the + operator in order to concatenate the two lists:

list_one = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]
list_two = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]

concatenated_list = list_one + list_two
print(concatenated_list)

For our example:

list_one = ['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear']
list_two = ['Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

concatenated_list = list_one + list_two
print(concatenated_list)

As you can see, the two lists are now concatenated:

['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear', 'Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

Similarly, you can use the + operator to concatenate two lists that contain integers:

list_one = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
list_two = [6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

concatenated_list = list_one + list_two
print(concatenated_list)

Here is the result:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Using Extend

Alternatively, you can use extend to concatenate the two lists:

list_one = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]
list_two = ['item1', 'item2', 'item3', ....]

list_one.extend(list_two)
print(list_one)

Here is the complete Python code for our example:

list_one = ['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear']
list_two = ['Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

list_one.extend(list_two)
print(list_one)

Result:

['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear', 'Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

Concatenate More Than Two Lists

You can use the + operator to concatenate multiple lists.

For example, let’s concatenate the following 4 lists:

list_one = ['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango']
list_two = ['Watermelon', 'Pear']
list_three = ['Blueberry', 'Cherry']
list_four = ['Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

concatenated_list = list_one + list_two + list_three + list_four
print(concatenated_list)

Run the code, and you’ll get the following result:

['Banana', 'Apple', 'Mango', 'Watermelon', 'Pear', 'Blueberry', 'Cherry', 'Pineapple', 'Papaya', 'Coconut']

Finally, you can check the following guide to learn more about creating a list in Python.

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