# Why “unique count” needs selecting a field while “count” doesn't?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789>\
**Category:** Kibana\
**Created:** [May 26, 2019, 8:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789 "2019-05-26T08:02:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hibruce](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hibruce/32/46860_2.png) [@hibruce](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hibruce)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2019, 8:02am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789/1 "2019-05-26T08:02:36Z")

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Hello guys,

i was trying the Visualization funtion and I found that the “unique count” needs selecting a field while “count” doesn't in the Metrics settings. I was wondering the purpose of the way of designing it so. It seems to me that "unique count" is a special way of count. Therefore, the "field" is not supposed to appear in that position.

Appreciate your comments...

![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/0/7/0792f57a7d44cddcfafa1ab4705aa0c4b730e9f7.png) ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/4/2/42c1f9307041a5d4428ebb3a00d9429c9cd3bd10.png)

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**Author:** ![ylasri](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ylasri/32/86120_2.png) [@ylasri](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ylasri)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2019, 11:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789/2 "2019-05-26T11:19:14Z")

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@hibruce count is used to count the number of documents per bucket  
But unique count is designed for cadinality count, means count unique occurence of a term (see this link for more informaation : [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-aggregations-metrics-cardinality-aggregation.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/search-aggregations-metrics-cardinality-aggregation.html))

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**Author:** ![hibruce](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/hibruce/32/46860_2.png) [@hibruce](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/hibruce)\
**Post date:** [May 26, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789/3 "2019-05-26T12:36:05Z")

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thanks ylasri! Quite clear!  
The wording’s a little bit confusing 😛

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 12:36pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/why-unique-count-needs-selecting-a-field-while-count-doesnt/182789/4 "2019-06-23T12:36:11Z")

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