Figures and Axes Objects

Creating a figure

The figure contains all the plot elements. The main way to create a figure in matplotlib is to use pyplot.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()

You can optionally supply a number, which you can use to access a previously-created figure. If a number is not supplied, the last-created figure’s ID will be incremented and used instead; figures are indexed starting from 1, not 0.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
fig == plt.figure(1)  # True

Instead of a number, figures can also identified by a string. If using an interactive backend, this will also set the window title.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure('image')

To choose figure use

plt.figure(fig.number) # or
plt.figure(1)

Creating an axes

There are two main ways to create an axes in matplotlib: using pyplot, or using the object-oriented API.

Using pyplot:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

ax = plt.subplot(3, 2, 1)  # 3 rows, 2 columns, the first subplot

Using the object-oriented API:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(3, 2, 1)

The convenience function plt.subplots() can be used to produce a figure and collection of subplots in one command:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(ncols=2, nrows=1)  # 1 row, 2 columns