#!/usr/bin/python3 def dataKey_first(d): return d[1]['first'] def dataKey_height(d): return d[1]['height'] data = { 'kinne':{'age':10, 'first':'jeff', 'last':'kinne', 'height':188}, # ('kinne', {...}) 'smith':{'age':12, 'first':'alice', 'last':'smith', 'height':170}, 'kumar':{'age':13, 'first':'shuchi', 'last':'kumar', 'height':175} } data_list = list(data.items()) print(data_list) print('first key', data_list[0][0]) print('first value', data_list[0][1]) data_list.sort(key = dataKey_first) # option ,reverse=True top_n = 2 # or top_n = 50 for x in data_list[0:top_n]: print(x)