Why are Python Ref Counts to small integers surprisingly high?
<p>In <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/510406/is-there-a-way-to-get-the-current-ref-count-of-an-object-in-python">this</a> answer I found a way to get a reference count of objects in Python.  </p>

<p>They mentioned using <code>sys.getrefcount()</code>. I tried it, but I'm getting an unexpected result. When there is 1 reference, it seems as though the count is 20.  Why is that?  </p>

<p>I looked at the <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/sys.html#sys.getrefcount" rel="nofollow noreferrer">documentation</a> but it doesn't seem to explain the reason.  </p>

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/SOrCj.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/SOrCj.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>