Analytic Combinatorics aims at predicting precisely the properties of large structured combinatorial configurations, through an approach based extensively on analytic methods. Generating functions are the central objects of study of the theory.

Analytic combinatorics starts from an exact enumerative description of combinatorial structures by means of generating functions: these make their first appearance as purely formal algebraic objects. Next, generating functions are interpreted as analytic objects, that is, as mappings of the complex plane into itself. Singularities determine a function's coefficients in asymptotic form and lead to precise estimates for counting sequences. This chain of reasoning applies to a large number of problems of discrete mathematics relative to words, compositions, partitions, trees, permutations, graphs, mappings, planar configurations, and so on. A suitable adaptation of the methods also opens the way to the quantitative analysis of characteristic parameters of large random structures, via a perturbational approach.

Theapproach to quantitative problems of discrete mathematics provided by analytic combinatorics can be viewed as an operational calculus for combinatorics organized around three components.