Set Axis Range (axis limits) in Matplotlib Plots

The matplotlib library in Python comes with a number of useful functions and customizations that help you modify your plot to a great extent. In this tutorial, we will look at how to set the axis range in a matplotlib plot with the help of some examples.

Set Axis Limits using xlim() and ylim()

You can use the maplotlib.pyplot‘s xlim() and ylim() functions to set the axis ranges for the x-axis and the y-axis respectively. Pass the axis range (axis limits) as a tuple to these functions.

The following is the syntax –

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# create a plot - for example, a scatter plot
plt.scatter(x, y)

# set the x-axis limit to (x1, x2)
plt.xlim((x1, x2))

# set the y-axis limit to (y1, y2)
plt.ylim((y1, y2))

Let’s now look at some examples of using the above syntax. For this, we will be using the US dollar to Indian rupee conversion data from 2011 to 2020. Let’s plot the data as a scatter plot.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# x values - years
x = [2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020]
# y values - 1 USD in INR
y = [46.67, 53.44, 56.57, 62.33, 62.97, 66.46, 67.79, 70.09, 70.39, 76.38]

# plot x and y on scatter plot
plt.scatter(x, y)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('1USD in INR')

Output:

Example 1 – Set the x-axis range with xlim()

Let’s say you only want to see the data for 2014 to 2020. For this, you can set the x-axis limit using xlim() function on the matplotlib pyplot object plt.

# plot x and y on scatter plot
plt.scatter(x, y)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('1USD in INR')

# set the x-axis range
plt.xlim((2014, 2020))

Output:

Example 2 – Set the y-axis range with ylim()

You can similarly modify the y-axis limit using the ylim() function on the matplotlib pyplot object plt.

Restricting or modifying the y-axis range is not as common as changing the x-axis range but depending upon the use case you may need to do it. In the above example, let’s change the y-axis range to 50 to 65.

# plot x and y on scatter plot
plt.scatter(x, y)

# add axes labels
plt.xlabel('Year')
plt.ylabel('1USD in INR')

# set the y-axis range
plt.ylim((50, 65))

Output:

Note that if you’re working with multiple subplots you can use the set_xlim() and set_ylim() functions on the individual axes objects (for example ax1) to change the axis limits for each subplot.

You might also be interested in –

• Change Font Size of elements in a Matplotlib plot
• Plot a Line Chart in Python with Matplotlib
• Create a Scatter Plot in Python with Matplotlib
• Change Background Color of Plot in Matplotlib
• Add Trendline to a Maplotlib Plot with Code and Output
• How to Add Title to a Plot in Matplotlib? (Code Examples with Output)