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Matplotlib Histogram

Matplotlib can be used to create histograms. A histogram shows the frequency on the vertical axis and the horizontal axis is another dimension. Usually it has bins, where every bin has a minimum and maximum value. Each bin also has a frequency between x and infinite.

Related course

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Matplotlib histogram example
Below we show the most minimal Matplotlib histogram:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.mlab as mlab
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
x = [21,22,23,4,5,6,77,8,9,10,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,18,49,50,100]
num_bins = 5
n, bins, patches = plt.hist(x, num_bins, facecolor='blue', alpha=0.5)
plt.show()

Output:

A complete matplotlib python histogram
Many things can be added to a histogram such as a fit line, labels and so on. The code below creates a more advanced histogram.

#!/usr/bin/env python
 
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.mlab as mlab
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# example data
mu = 100 # mean of distribution
sigma = 15 # standard deviation of distribution
x = mu + sigma * np.random.randn(10000)
 
num_bins = 20
# the histogram of the data
n, bins, patches = plt.hist(x, num_bins, normed=1, facecolor='blue', alpha=0.5)
 
# add a 'best fit' line
y = mlab.normpdf(bins, mu, sigma)
plt.plot(bins, y, 'r--')
plt.xlabel('Smarts')
plt.ylabel('Probability')
plt.title(r'Histogram of IQ: $\mu=100$, $\sigma=15$')
 
# Tweak spacing to prevent clipping of ylabel
plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.15)
plt.show()

Output:

Matplotlib Line chart

A line chart can be created using the Matplotlib plot() function. While we can just plot a line, we are not limited to that. We can explicitly define the grid, the x and y axis scale and labels, title and display options.

Related course:

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Line chart example
The example below will create a line chart.

from pylab import *
t = arange(0.0, 2.0, 0.01)
s = sin(2.5*pi*t)
plot(t, s)
 
xlabel('time (s)')
ylabel('voltage (mV)')
title('Sine Wave')
grid(True)
show()

Output:

python_matplotlib_linechart — Python **Matplotlib** Line Chart

The lines:

from pylab import *
 
t = arange(0.0, 2.0, 0.01)
s = sin(2.5*pi*t)

simply define the data to be plotted.

from pylab import *
 
t = arange(0.0, 2.0, 0.01)
s = sin(2.5*pi*t)
plot(t, s)
show()

plots the chart. The other statements are very straightforward: statements xlabel() sets the x-axis text, ylabel() sets the y-axis text, title() sets the chart title and grid(True) simply turns on the grid.

If you want to save the plot to the disk, call the statement:

savefig("line_chart.png")

Plot a custom Line Chart

If you want to plot using an array (list), you can execute this script:

from pylab import *
 
t = arange(0.0, 20.0, 1)
s = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
plot(t, s)
 
xlabel('Item (s)')
ylabel('Value')
title('Python Line Chart: Plotting numbers')
grid(True)
show()

The statement:

t = arange(0.0, 20.0, 1)

defines start from 0, plot 20 items (length of our array) with steps of 1.

Output:

python_line_chart — Python Line Chart from List

Multiple plots

If you want to plot multiple lines in one chart, simply call the plot() function multiple times. An example:

from pylab import *
 
t = arange(0.0, 20.0, 1)
s = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
s2 = [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]
plot(t, s)
plot(t, s2)
 
xlabel('Item (s)')
ylabel('Value')
title('Python Line Chart: Plotting numbers')
grid(True)
show()

Output:

python_line_chart_multiple — python line chart multiple

In case you want to plot them in different views in the same window you can use this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from pylab import *
 
t = arange(0.0, 20.0, 1)
s = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
s2 = [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]
 
plt.subplot(2, 1, 1)
plt.plot(t, s)
plt.ylabel('Value')
plt.title('First chart')
plt.grid(True)
 
plt.subplot(2, 1, 2)
plt.plot(t, s2)
plt.xlabel('Item (s)')
plt.ylabel('Value')
plt.title('Second chart')
plt.grid(True)
plt.show()

Output:

The plt.subplot() statement is key here. The subplot() command specifies numrows, numcols and fignum.

Styling the plot
If you want thick lines or set the color, use:

plot(t, s, color="red", linewidth=2.5, linestyle="-")

Matplotlib Bar chart

Matplotlib may be used to create bar charts. You might like the Matplotlib gallery.

Related course
The course below is all about data visualization:

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Bar chart code
The code below creates a bar chart:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt; plt.rcdefaults()
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
objects = ('Python', 'C++', 'Java', 'Perl', 'Scala', 'Lisp')
y_pos = np.arange(len(objects))
performance = [10,8,6,4,2,1]
 
plt.bar(y_pos, performance, align='center', alpha=0.5)
plt.xticks(y_pos, objects)
plt.ylabel('Usage')
plt.title('Programming language usage')
 
plt.show()

Output:

Matplotlib charts can be horizontal, to create a horizontal bar chart:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt; plt.rcdefaults()
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
objects = ('Python', 'C++', 'Java', 'Perl', 'Scala', 'Lisp')
y_pos = np.arange(len(objects))
performance = [10,8,6,4,2,1]
 
plt.barh(y_pos, performance, align='center', alpha=0.5)
plt.yticks(y_pos, objects)
plt.xlabel('Usage')
plt.title('Programming language usage')
 
plt.show()

Output:

More on bar charts
You can compare two data series using this Matplotlib code:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# data to plot
n_groups = 4
means_frank = (90, 55, 40, 65)
means_guido = (85, 62, 54, 20)
 
# create plot
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
index = np.arange(n_groups)
bar_width = 0.35
opacity = 0.8
 
rects1 = plt.bar(index, means_frank, bar_width,
alpha=opacity,
color='b',
label='Frank')
 
rects2 = plt.bar(index + bar_width, means_guido, bar_width,
alpha=opacity,
color='g',
label='Guido')
 
plt.xlabel('Person')
plt.ylabel('Scores')
plt.title('Scores by person')
plt.xticks(index + bar_width, ('A', 'B', 'C', 'D'))
plt.legend()
 
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Output:

barchart_python — Python Bar Chart comparison

Download All Matplotlib Examples

Matplotlib Pie chart

Matplotlib supports pie charts using the pie() function. You might like the Matplotlib gallery.

Related course:

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Matplotlib pie chart
The code below creates a pie chart:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# Data to plot
labels = 'Python', 'C++', 'Ruby', 'Java'
sizes = [215, 130, 245, 210]
colors = ['gold', 'yellowgreen', 'lightcoral', 'lightskyblue']
explode = (0.1, 0, 0, 0)  # explode 1st slice
 
# Plot
plt.pie(sizes, explode=explode, labels=labels, colors=colors,
autopct='%1.1f%%', shadow=True, startangle=140)
 
plt.axis('equal')
plt.show()

Output:

To add a legend use the plt.legend() function:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
labels = ['Cookies', 'Jellybean', 'Milkshake', 'Cheesecake']
sizes = [38.4, 40.6, 20.7, 10.3]
colors = ['yellowgreen', 'gold', 'lightskyblue', 'lightcoral']
patches, texts = plt.pie(sizes, colors=colors, shadow=True, startangle=90)
plt.legend(patches, labels, loc="best")
plt.axis('equal')
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Output:

Download All Matplotlib Examples

Matplotlib legend

Matplotlib has native support for legends. Legends can be placed in various positions: A legend can be placed inside or outside the chart and the position can be moved.

The legend() method adds the legend to the plot. In this article we will show you some examples of legends using matplotlib.

Related course

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Matplotlib legend inside
To place the legend inside, simply call legend():

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
 
y = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20]
y2 = [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y, label='$y = numbers')
ax.plot(x, y2, label='$y2 = other numbers')
plt.title('Legend inside')
ax.legend()
plt.show()

matplot-legend — Matplotlib legend inside

Matplotlib legend on bottom
To place the legend on the bottom, change the legend() call to:

ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, -0.05),&nbsp; shadow=True, ncol=2)

Take into account that we set the number of columns two ncol=2 and set a shadow.

The complete code would be:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
 
y = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20]
y2 = [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y, label='$y = numbers')
ax.plot(x, y2, label='$y2 = other numbers')
plt.title('Legend inside')
ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, -0.05),&nbsp; shadow=True, ncol=2)
plt.show()

matplot-legend-bottom — Legend placed on bottom

Matplotlib legend on top
To put the legend on top, change the bbox_to_anchor values:

ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 1.00),&nbsp; shadow=True, ncol=2)

Code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
 
y = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20]
y2 = [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y, label='$y = numbers')
ax.plot(x, y2, label='$y2 = other numbers')
plt.title('Legend inside')
ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 1.00), shadow=True, ncol=2)
plt.show()

Legend outside right
We can put the legend ouside by resizing the box and puting the legend relative to that:

chartBox = ax.get_position()
ax.set_position([chartBox.x0, chartBox.y0, chartBox.width*0.6, chartBox.height])
ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(1.45, 0.8), shadow=True, ncol=1)

Code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
 
y = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20]
y2 = [10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y, label='$y = numbers')
ax.plot(x, y2, label='$y2 = other numbers')
plt.title('Legend outside')
chartBox = ax.get_position()
ax.set_position([chartBox.x0, chartBox.y0, chartBox.width*0.6, chartBox.height])
ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(1.45, 0.8), shadow=True, ncol=1)
plt.show()

matplotlib-legend-outside — Matplotlib legend outside

Matplotlib save figure to image file

Related course
The course below is all about data visualization:

Data Visualization with Matplotlib and Python

Save figure
Matplotlib can save plots directly to a file using savefig().
The method can be used like this:

fig.savefig('plot.png')

Complete example:

import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
 
y = [2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20]
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y, label='$y = numbers')
plt.title('Legend inside')
ax.legend()
#plt.show()
 
fig.savefig('plot.png')

To change the format, simply change the extension like so:

fig.savefig('plot.pdf')

You can open your file using

display plot.png

or open it in an image or pdf viewer,

matplotlib-plot-save — A plot saved to a pdf

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