How to change the legend position in Matplotlib?

In this tutorial, we will look at how to change the legend position inside a matplotlib plot with the help of some examples.

You can use the loc keyword parameter in the matplotlib.pyplot.legend() function to specify the location of the legend in a matplotlib plot.

There are different location values that you can pass to the loc parameter –

1. You can use the strings ‘upper left’, ‘upper right’, ‘lower left’, and ‘lower right’ to place the legend at the corresponding corners.
2. Use the strings ‘upper center’, ‘lower center’, ‘center left’, and ‘center right’ to place the legend at the center of the corresponding axes/figure edge.
3. Use the string ‘center’ to place the legend at the center of the axes/figure.
4. The string ‘best’ places the legend at a location (one among the above nine mentioned) that minimizes the overlap with the other content.

The default value for the loc parameter is ‘best’.

Let’s now look at some examples of using the above syntax –

First, we will create a matplotlib plot with the default legend.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# x values - years
x = [2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020]
# y1 values - goals by Lionel Messi in club football
y1 = [73, 60, 41, 58, 41, 54, 45, 51, 31, 38]
# y2 values - goals by Cristiano Ronaldo in club football 
y2 = [60, 55, 51, 61, 51, 42, 44, 28, 37, 36]

# plot y1 on a line plot
plt.plot(x, y1)
# plot y2 on a line plot
plt.plot(x, y2)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('Goals in Club Football')

# add plot title
plt.title("Messi vs Ronaldo")

# add plot legend
plt.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'])

Output:

Here, we plot the goals scored by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in club football from 2011 to 2022. Note that the year 2011 means the club football season starting in 2011 (that is, the 2011-2012 season).

The legend is placed at the top right in this example, which matplotlib determined to be the ‘best’ location for the legend.

Example 1 – Place legend at bottom left

Let’s replot the above plot but with the legend at the bottom left this time. For this, we need to pass ‘lower left’ to the loc parameter.

# plot x and y on a line plot
plt.plot(x, y1)
plt.plot(x, y2)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('Goals in Club Football')

# add plot title
plt.title("Messi vs Ronaldo")

# add plot legend
plt.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'], loc='lower left')

Output:

The legend is now positioned at the lower left corner of the plot.

Example 2 – Place legend at upper center

You can similarly place the legend at other positions in the chart. For example, let’s now place the legend at the upper center. For this, pass ‘upper center’ to the loc parameter.

# plot x and y on a line plot
plt.plot(x, y1)
plt.plot(x, y2)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('Goals in Club Football')

# add plot title
plt.title("Messi vs Ronaldo")

# add plot legend
plt.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'], loc='upper center')

Output:

The legend is now placed at the upper center position.

Example 3 – Change legend position in subplots

To change the position of a legend in a subplot, you’ll have to use the subplot’s axes object’s legend() function which is very similar to the matplotlib.pyplot.legend() function which works for a single plot (or the latest plot in subplots).

First, let’s create a plot with two subplots.

# create subplots
fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(10, 5))

# plot the first subplot
ax1.plot(x, y1)
ax1.plot(x, y2)
# add axis labels
ax1.set_xlabel('Year')
ax1.set_ylabel('Goals in Club Football')
# add legend
ax1.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'])

# plot the second subplot
ax2.plot(x, y1)
ax2.plot(x, y2)
# add axis labels
ax2.set_xlabel('Year')
ax2.set_ylabel('Goals in Club Football')
# add legend
ax2.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'])

Output:

Here, we created two subplots. Both the subplots have the same data but that is not important. You can see that legend is placed at the best location inside each of those plots.

Let’s now change the position of the legend in the first subplot to ‘lower left’ and the legend in the second subplot to ‘center right’.

# create subplots
fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(10, 5))

# plot the first subplot
ax1.plot(x, y1)
ax1.plot(x, y2)
# add axis labels
ax1.set_xlabel('Year')
ax1.set_ylabel('Goals in Club Football')
# add legend
ax1.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'], loc='lower left')

# plot the second subplot
ax2.plot(x, y1)
ax2.plot(x, y2)
# add axis labels
ax2.set_xlabel('Year')
ax2.set_ylabel('Goals in Club Football')
# add legend
ax2.legend(['Messi', 'Ronaldo'], loc='center right')

Output:

You might also be interested in –

• Matplotlib – Change Line to Dots
• Matplotlib – Add an Average Line to the Plot
• How to make text italic in a Matplotlib plot?
• How to bold text in a Matplotlib plot?
• Matplotlib – Remove the frame without altering the ticks and the tick labels