Distributions
  1. Home
  2. Distributions
  3. Pareto Distribution

Pareto Distribution

A power-law distribution modeling wealth, city sizes, and the famous 80-20 rule.

Probability Density FunctionPDF = f(x)
Cumulative Distribution FunctionCDF = F(x)
Probability in an Interval
Compute the probability that X falls between two values. For continuous distributions, this is the shaded area under the PDF (≤ vs < doesn't matter).
P(a ≤ X ≤ b)
Quantiles (Inverse CDF)
Pick a probability p and read the corresponding quantile xₚ where F(xₚ) = p.
Quantile xₚ (where F(xₚ) = p)
In Pareto Distribution, selected probability p: 0.9500 (95.00%)

Parameters

Adjust the parameters and (optionally) add up to 3 curves to compare different settings side‑by‑side.

0 curves shown

Estimating parameters from data

If you’re fitting this distribution to observed data, these are common plug‑in estimates you can start with.

Scale (xₘ)

The minimum observed value in your data.

Shape (α)

Maximum likelihood: α = n / Σ ln(xᵢ/xₘ).