Load Factor

The term packing density refers to the ratio of the number of records to be stored

r

to the number of available spaces

N

they serve as a guideline to size a hashmap based on the number of buckets to actually use.

Number of records      r
-----------------  =  ---  =  packing density
Number of spaces       N

if there are 75 records to store and 100 available address buckets, the packing density is therefore 0.75 or 75%.

References