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Do we say the least number of tourists or the fewest number of tourists?
When I searched for it, I found the least number of tourists but I also found the fewest number of pages then I was confused I don't know why we use the least and the fewest followed by the same word "number".
Few refers to a very small subset (of another set, here "tourists").
Least can be paraphrased as "lowest". "Least" can modify "number": the lowest number.
number of X refers to the count of items in set X.
The most direct grammatical form is
the fewest tourists
Another grammatical possibility is
the lowest|least number of tourists
Although here and there you will encounter the phrase "fewest number of X", it is an outlier which many native speakers consider ungrammatical, even if there are some who use it.
We never say "least number of something" as less/least is for uncountable nouns and money, time, weight, distance, population.
For percentages we use other rules more specific.
However, we say fewest number of "something" for something that is countable, like people, tourists, oranges, etc.
Or lowest number of "something" if this "something" is number itself, like 3, 65, 8648.
We say least amount of something, for example least amount of money, where money is uncountable.
