Which statement correctly describes the meaning of SYSTEM$CLUSTERING_DEPTH?

• A. The total number of rows in the table
• B. The average depth of the table according to the clustering key
• C. The depth of the deepest leaf
• D. The number of clusters

Answer: (B)

Clustering depth is a diagnostic measure of how data is organized by the clustering key across Snowflake’s micro-partitions. SYSTEM$CLUSTERING_DEPTH reports the average depth of the clustering-key structure for the table, meaning how far, on average, data blocks are from the clustering key values used to prune partitions during queries. This helps you gauge how well the clustering key is aligning with the stored data: a lower average depth generally indicates better clustering and more efficient pruning, while a higher average depth suggests data is spread across more partitions relative to the clustering key. It isn’t about total row count, not about the deepest leaf, and not about the number of clusters.