Cumulative distribution of the orbital periods of the CVs observed by SDSS-V, compared to those of the Ritter & Kolb (2003) catalogue of CVs and of the 150 pc volume-limited survey (Pala et al. 2020). The period minimum (red line) and ‘period gap’ (pink rectangle) are indicated (see text for details). We also include the period distribution of Ritter & Kolb (2003) with classical novae and novalikes removed, for a range of limiting magnitudes, as well as the period distribution of classical novae and novalikes alone, demonstrating the selection effect of these intrinsically bright objects.