Matplotlib is an amazing and one of the most widely used data visualization libraries in Python for plots of arrays. It is a multi-platform data visualization library built on NumPy arrays and designed to work with the broader SciPy stack. It is much popular because of its customization options as we can tweak about any element from its hierarchy of objects.
Rotating X-axis labels in Matplotlib
To rotate X-axis labels, there are various methods provided by Matplotlib i.e. change it on the Figure-level or by changing it on an Axes-level or individually by using built-in functions. Some methods are listed below :
Let’s create a simple line plot which we will modify further
Python3
# Import librariesimport matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# Creating datasetx = np.arange(0, np.pi*2, 0.05)y = np.sin(x**2)# Creating plotplt.plot(x, y)# Setting titleplt.title('Simple Example')# Show plotplt.show() |
Output :
Rotate X-Axis Tick Label Text using plt.xticks()
In this example, we will rotate X-axis labels on Figure-level using plt.xticks().
Syntax: matplotlib.pyplot.xticks(ticks=None, labels=None, **kwargs)
Python3
# Import librariesimport matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# Creating datasetx = np.arange(0, np.pi*2, 0.05)y = np.sin(x**2)# Creating plotplt.plot(x, y)# Rotating X-axis labelsplt.xticks(rotation = 25)# Setting titleplt.title('Rotating using plt.xticks()')# Show plotplt.show() |
Output :
Rotate X-Axis Tick Label Text using tick.set_rotation()
In this example, we will rotate X-axis labels on Axes-level using tick.set_rotation().
Syntax: Axes.get_xticks(self, minor=False)
Python3
# Import librariesimport matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# Creating datasetx = np.arange(0, np.pi*2, 0.05)y = np.sin(x**2)# Creating Figurefig, ax = plt.subplots()# Creating plotax.plot(x, y)# Rotating X-axis labelsax.set_xticklabels(ax.get_xticks(), rotation = 50)# Setting titleplt.title('Rotating using tick.set_rotation()')# Show plotplt.show() |
Output:
Rotate X-Axis Tick Label Text using ax.set_xticklabels()
In this example, we will rotate X-axis labels individually by using the built-in ax.set_xticklabels() function.
Syntax: Axes.set_xticklabels(self, labels, fontdict=None, minor=False, **kwargs)
Python3
# Import librariesimport matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# Creating datasetx = np.arange(0, np.pi*2, 0.05)y = np.sin(x**2)# Creating Figurefig, ax = plt.subplots()# Creating plotax.plot(x, y)# Rotating X-axis labelsfor tick in ax.get_xticklabels(): tick.set_rotation(75)# Setting titleplt.title('Rotating using ax.set_xticklabels()')# Show plotplt.show() |
Output:
Rotate X-Axis Tick Label Text using ax.xtick_params() function
In this example, we will rotate X-axis labels individually by using the built-in ax.xtick_params() function.
Syntax: matplotlib.pyplot.tick_params(axis=’both’, **kwargs)
Python3
# Import librariesimport matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# Creating datasetx = np.arange(0, np.pi*2, 0.05)y = np.sin(x**2)# Creating Figurefig, ax = plt.subplots()# Creating plotax.plot(x, y)# Rotating X-axis labelsax.tick_params(axis='x', labelrotation = 100)# Setting titleplt.title('Rotating using ax.xtick_params()')# Show plotplt.show() |
Output:
