Quartile & IQR Calculator NZ
This calculator finds the quartiles and interquartile range of a data set, and flags the boundaries beyond which values count as outliers. Quartiles split ordered data into four equal parts: the first quartile, Q1, is the 25th percentile, the second is the median, and the third quartile, Q3, is the 75th percentile. The interquartile range, or IQR, is the distance between Q1 and Q3, and it measures the spread of the middle half of the data, making it a robust gauge of variability that is not thrown off by extreme values the way the full range or even the standard deviation can be. The IQR also drives the standard rule for spotting outliers: any value more than 1.5 times the IQR below Q1 or above Q3 is flagged as a potential outlier, the same logic that draws the whiskers on a box plot. You paste or type your numbers, and the calculator returns Q1, the median, Q3, the IQR, the minimum and maximum, and the lower and upper outlier fences. The results update as you edit the data, so you can immediately see how an extreme value affects the spread and whether it falls outside the fences. Use it to summarise a dataset, to build or interpret a box plot, to detect outliers before further analysis, or for statistics homework. The quartiles use the standard interpolation method, consistent with most software. The calculations are exact for your numbers, rounded for display.
IQR is the spread of the middle half. Values beyond 1.5 x IQR past Q1 or Q3 are potential outliers (e.g. 95 here). Rounded for display.
How it works
The data is sorted, then Q1, the median and Q3 are found as the 25th, 50th and 75th percentiles using linear interpolation. The interquartile range is Q3 minus Q1. The outlier fences are Q1 minus 1.5 times the IQR and Q3 plus 1.5 times the IQR; values beyond them are potential outliers.
Worked example
For 7, 9, 12, 14, 18, 21, 26, 33, 40, 95: Q1 is about 12.5, the median 19.5, and Q3 about 31.25, so the IQR is 18.75. The fences are 12.5 minus 1.5 times 18.75, about minus 15.6, and 31.25 plus 1.5 times 18.75, about 59.4. The value 95 lies beyond the upper fence, so it is flagged as an outlier.
Related calculators
- Percentile Calculator: any percentile.
- Mean Median Mode: averages and range.
- Standard Deviation: variability.
- Z-Score Calculator: standardised position.