r.stats.quantile - GRASS manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: r.stats.quantile: Compute category quantiles using two passes.
Keywords: raster, statistics, zonal statistics, percentile, quantile

## NAME

r.stats.quantile - Compute category quantiles using two passes.

## KEYWORDS

raster, statistics, zonal statistics, percentile, quantile

## SYNOPSIS

r.stats.quantile
r.stats.quantile --help
r.stats.quantile [-rpt] base=name cover=name [quantiles=integer] [percentiles=float[,float,...]] [bins=integer] [output=name[,name,...]] [file=name] [separator=character] format=name [--overwrite] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

### Flags:

-r
  Create reclass map with statistics as category labels
-p
  Do not create output maps; just print statistics
-t
  Print statistics in table format [deprecated]
  This flag is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Use format=csv instead.
--overwrite
  Allow output files to overwrite existing files
--help
  Print usage summary
--verbose
  Verbose module output
--quiet
  Quiet module output
--ui
  Force launching GUI dialog

### Parameters:

base=name [required]
  Name of base raster map
cover=name [required]
  Name of cover raster map
quantiles=integer
  Number of quantiles
percentiles=float[,float,...]
  List of percentiles
  Default: 50
bins=integer
  Number of bins to use
  Default: 1000
output=name[,name,...]
  Resultant raster map(s)
file=name
  Name for output file (if omitted or "-" output to stdout)
separator=character
  Field separator
  Special characters: pipe, comma, space, tab, newline
format=name [required]
  Output format
  Options: plain, csv, json
  Default: plain
  plain: Human readable text output
  csv: CSV (Comma Separated Values)
  json: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)

## DESCRIPTION

r.stats.quantile is a tool to analyse exploratory statistics of a floating-point "cover layer" according to how it intersects with objects in a "base layer". It provides quantile calculations as selected "zonal statistics".

## NOTES

r.stats.quantile is intended to be a partial replacement for r.statistics, with support for floating-point cover maps. It provides quantile calculations, which are absent from r.stats.zonal.

Quantiles are calculated following algorithm 7 from Hyndman and Fan (1996), which is also the default in R and numpy.

## EXAMPLE

In this example, the raster polygon map `zipcodes` in the North Carolina sample dataset is used to calculate quantile raster statistics using the `elevation` raster map:

    g.region raster=zipcodes -p

    # print quantiles
    r.stats.quantile base=zipcodes cover=elevation quantiles=3 -p
    27511:0:33.333333:134.717392
    27511:1:66.666667:143.985723
    27513:0:33.333333:140.669993
    27513:1:66.666667:146.279449
    27518:0:33.333333:115.140101
    27518:1:66.666667:129.893723
    [...]

    # write out percentile raster maps
    r.stats.quantile base=zipcodes cover=elevation percentiles=25,50,75 \
      output=zipcodes_elev_q25,zipcodes_elev_q50,zipcodes_elev_q75

## REFERENCES

- Hyndman and Fan (1996) Sample Quantiles in Statistical Packages, American Statistician. American Statistical Association. 50 (4): 361-365. DOI: 10.2307/2684934
- Engineering Statistics Handbook: Percentile, NIST

## SEE ALSO

r.quantile, r.stats.zonal, r.statistics

## AUTHORS

Glynn Clements
Markus Metz

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: r.stats.quantile source code (history)

Accessed: Monday May 11 17:54:25 2026

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