In statistics, a categorical variable is a variable that can take on one of a limited, and usually fixed, number of possible values, thus assigning each individual to a particular group or "category."[1] In computer science and some branches of mathematics, categorical variables are referred to as enumerations or enumerated types. Commonly (though not in this article), each of the possible values of a categorical variable is referred to as a level. The probability distribution associated with a random categorical variable is called a categorical distribution.