The concept of partitioning is expanded with a variety of techniques. In particular, one technique involves partitioning an object at multiple levels, where at least one of the levels uses list-based partitioning. Further, a partitioning technique is provided which involves storing a data item in a default partition when the item does not map to any one of the list-based partitions for which a key value group has been defined. Techniques are also provided for efficiently splitting a partition.