SQL - POSTGRES - DATE_PART why is sql resulting in week 53 when it should be week 2 - sql

Question

TABLE
INSERT INTO runners
("runner_id", "registration_date")
VALUES
(1, '2021-01-01'),
(2, '2021-01-03'),
(3, '2021-01-08'),
(4, '2021-01-15');
SQL Query
SELECT
DATE_PART('WEEK', R.registration_date) AS week_num,
COUNT(runner_id)
FROM
pizza_runner.runners R
GROUP BY
week_num
ORDER BY
week_num ASC;
I was expecting the query to return weeks 1 and 2 only but for some reason I am getting 53
]1

Answer 1

I was expecting the query to return weeks 1 and 2 only but for some reason I am getting 53
The documentation does a good job explaining the ISO rules for weeks - which Postgres follows:
The number of the ISO 8601 week-numbering week of the year. By definition, ISO weeks start on Mondays and the first week of a year contains January 4 of that year. In other words, the first Thursday of a year is in week 1 of that year.
Using your dataset:
SELECT r.*,
extract(week from registration_date) AS week_num,
extract(isodow from registration_date) as day_of_week
FROM runners r
ORDER BY registration_date;
runner_id
registration_date
week_num
day_of_week
1
2021-01-01
53
5
2
2021-01-03
53
7
3
2021-01-08
1
5
4
2021-01-15
2
5
It turns out that January 3rd, 2021 was a Sunday (day of week 7). January 4st, 2021 was a Monday, and according to the ISO rules this is when the first week of that year began. Previous dates (January 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and so on) belong to the last week of 2020 (week 53), although the dates belong to year 2021.