reps = 2000 size = 5000 import time print 'range...\t', start = time.time() for i in range(reps): for i in range(size): pass stop = time.time() print stop - start print 'xrange...\t', start = time.time() for i in range(reps): for i in xrange(size): pass stop = time.time() print stop - start raw_input('Press enter')