How to change axis tick label spacing on python graph?

Question

I have the following formula:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import mplleaflet
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np 

ax = plt.gca()
datamax.plot(kind='line',x='Date',y='Data_Value',color='red',ax=ax)
datamin.plot(kind='line',x='Date',y='Data_Value', color='blue',ax=ax)
plt.ylabel("Temperature (degrees C)",color='navy')
plt.xlabel("Date",color='navy')
plt.title('Record high and low temperatures by day (2005-2014)', alpha=1.0,color='brown')
ax.legend(loc='upper center', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, -0.15),
          fancybox=False,labels=['Record high','Record low'])
#ax.set_xticks(ax.get_xticks()[::2])
plt.show()

However, I want to change the spacing of the tick labels so that either all of the tick labels are on the X-axis (they are currently too crammed and overlapping!).

Another possibility would be to display only each year on the X-axis (2005-2014, thus with 10 axis labels).

My output currently looks like this:

The dataframe datamax looks like this:

  Date           ID Element  Data_Value
0     2005-01-01  USW00094889    TMAX         156
1     2005-01-02  USW00094889    TMAX         139
2     2005-01-03  USW00094889    TMAX         133
3     2005-01-04  USW00094889    TMAX          39
4     2005-01-05  USW00094889    TMAX          33
5     2005-01-06  USW00094889    TMAX           0
6     2005-01-07  USW00094889    TMAX           6
7     2005-01-08  USW00094889    TMAX          17
8     2005-01-09  USW00094889    TMAX          28
9     2005-01-10  USW00094889    TMAX          44
10    2005-01-11  USW00094889    TMAX          44
11    2005-01-12  USW00094889    TMAX         139
12    2005-01-13  USW00094889    TMAX         161
13    2005-01-14  USW00094889    TMAX         150
14    2005-01-15  USW00094889    TMAX         -33
15    2005-01-16  USW00094889    TMAX         -33
16    2005-01-17  USW00094889    TMAX         -50
17    2005-01-18  USW00094889    TMAX         -33
18    2005-01-19  USW00094889    TMAX          11
19    2005-01-20  USW00094889    TMAX          11
20    2005-01-21  USW00094889    TMAX         -39
21    2005-01-22  USW00094889    TMAX         -72
22    2005-01-23  USW00094889    TMAX         -44
23    2005-01-24  USW00094889    TMAX          11
24    2005-01-25  USW00094889    TMAX          28
25    2005-01-26  USW00094889    TMAX          28
26    2005-01-27  USW00094889    TMAX           6
27    2005-01-28  USW00094889    TMAX         -11
28    2005-01-29  USW00094889    TMAX          17
29    2005-01-30  USW00094889    TMAX          28
...          ...          ...     ...         ...
3603  2014-11-13  USW00094889    TMAX          39
3604  2014-11-14  USW00094889    TMAX          33
3605  2014-11-15  USW00094889    TMAX          28
3606  2014-11-16  USW00094889    TMAX          28
3607  2014-11-17  USW00094889    TMAX          17
3608  2014-11-18  USW00094889    TMAX          11
3609  2014-11-19  USW00094889    TMAX          11
3610  2014-11-20  USW00094889    TMAX           6
3611  2014-11-21  USW00094889    TMAX         -10
3612  2014-11-22  USW00094889    TMAX         106
3613  2014-11-23  USW00094889    TMAX         156
3614  2014-11-24  USW00094889    TMAX         172
3615  2014-11-25  USW00094889    TMAX         172
3616  2014-11-26  USW00094889    TMAX          28
3617  2014-11-27  USW00094889    TMAX          39
3618  2014-11-28  USW00094889    TMAX          22
3619  2014-11-29  USW00094889    TMAX         117
3620  2014-11-30  USW00094889    TMAX         178
3621  2014-12-01  USW00094889    TMAX         172
3622  2014-12-02  USW00094889    TMAX          33
3623  2014-12-03  USW00094889    TMAX          61
3624  2014-12-04  USW00094889    TMAX          50
3625  2014-12-05  USW00094889    TMAX          50
3626  2014-12-06  USW00094889    TMAX          67
3627  2014-12-07  USW00094889    TMAX          67
3628  2014-12-08  USW00094889    TMAX          72
3629  2014-12-09  USW00094889    TMAX          56
3630  2014-12-10  USW00094889    TMAX          50
3631  2014-12-11  USW00094889    TMAX          61
3632  2014-12-12  USW00094889    TMAX          50

[3631 rows x 4 columns]

And the dataframe datamin like this:

     Date           ID Element  Data_Value
0     2005-01-01  USC00200032    TMIN         -56
1     2005-01-02  USC00200032    TMIN         -56
2     2005-01-03  USC00200032    TMIN           0
3     2005-01-04  USC00200032    TMIN         -39
4     2005-01-05  USC00200032    TMIN         -94
5     2005-01-06  USC00200032    TMIN        -106
6     2005-01-07  USC00200032    TMIN        -111
7     2005-01-08  USC00200032    TMIN        -100
8     2005-01-09  USC00200032    TMIN         -67
9     2005-01-10  USC00200032    TMIN         -56
10    2005-01-11  USC00200032    TMIN         -22
11    2005-01-12  USC00200032    TMIN         -17
12    2005-01-13  USC00200032    TMIN         -83
13    2005-01-14  USC00200032    TMIN        -128
14    2005-01-15  USC00200032    TMIN        -144
15    2005-01-16  USC00200032    TMIN        -150
16    2005-01-17  USC00200032    TMIN        -189
17    2005-01-18  USC00200032    TMIN        -217
18    2005-01-19  USC00200228    TMIN        -300
19    2005-01-20  USC00200032    TMIN        -156
20    2005-01-21  USC00200032    TMIN        -178
21    2005-01-22  USC00200032    TMIN        -178
22    2005-01-23  USC00200032    TMIN        -250
23    2005-01-24  USC00200032    TMIN        -267
24    2005-01-25  USC00200032    TMIN        -228
25    2005-01-26  USC00200032    TMIN        -206
26    2005-01-27  USC00200032    TMIN        -239
27    2005-01-28  USC00200032    TMIN        -250
28    2005-01-29  USC00200032    TMIN        -222
29    2005-01-30  USC00200228    TMIN        -217
...          ...          ...     ...         ...
3603  2014-11-13  USC00200032    TMIN         -71
3604  2014-11-14  USC00200032    TMIN         -78
3605  2014-11-15  USC00200032    TMIN         -94
3606  2014-11-16  USC00200032    TMIN         -72
3607  2014-11-17  USC00200032    TMIN        -106
3608  2014-11-18  USC00200032    TMIN        -144
3609  2014-11-19  USC00200032    TMIN        -128
3610  2014-11-20  USC00200032    TMIN        -122
3611  2014-11-21  USC00200032    TMIN        -182
3612  2014-11-22  USC00200032    TMIN        -172
3613  2014-11-23  USC00200032    TMIN        -100
3614  2014-11-24  USC00200032    TMIN          -5
3615  2014-11-25  USC00200032    TMIN         -33
3616  2014-11-26  USC00200032    TMIN         -67
3617  2014-11-27  USC00200032    TMIN         -82
3618  2014-11-28  USC00200032    TMIN        -133
3619  2014-11-29  USC00200032    TMIN        -106
3620  2014-11-30  USC00200032    TMIN         -56
3621  2014-12-01  USC00200032    TMIN         -88
3622  2014-12-02  USC00200032    TMIN         -99
3623  2014-12-03  USC00200032    TMIN         -71
3624  2014-12-04  USC00200032    TMIN         -77
3625  2014-12-05  USC00200032    TMIN         -61
3626  2014-12-06  USC00200032    TMIN         -50
3627  2014-12-07  USC00200032    TMIN         -78
3628  2014-12-08  USC00200032    TMIN         -78
3629  2014-12-09  USC00200032    TMIN         -39
3630  2014-12-10  USC00200032    TMIN         -72
3631  2014-12-11  USC00200032    TMIN         -88
3632  2014-12-12  USC00200032    TMIN         -78

[3631 rows x 4 columns]

Does this answer your question? [How do I add space between the ticklabels and the axes in matplotlib?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2969867/how-do-i-add-space-between-the-ticklabels-and-the-axes-in-matplotlib) — Bertil Johannes Ipsen, May 28 '20 at 14:00
[Would rotating them, even by just a bit, be an option?](https://matplotlib.org/3.1.1/gallery/ticks_and_spines/ticklabels_rotation.html) — Bertil Johannes Ipsen, May 28 '20 at 14:04
[`autofmt_xdate`](https://matplotlib.org/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure.Figure.html#matplotlib.figure.Figure.autofmt_xdate). — BigBen, May 28 '20 at 14:06

Alessandro Peca · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-28T14:26:05.303

2

Option 1: rotate the labels. In this way, you "gain" some space.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x=["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Fryday","Saturday","Sunday"]
y=np.linspace(1,100,7)

fig,ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x,y)
ax.tick_params(axis='x', rotation=45)

Option 2: personalize your labels.

ax.plot(x,y)
ax.set_xticklabels(['M','T','W','R','F','S','N'])
fig.savefig("/Users/Alessandro/Desktop/2.png")

Option 3: diminish label frequency.

ax.plot(x,y)
ax.set_xticks([0,2,4,6])
ax.set_xticklabels(['M','W','F','N'])

Option 4: diminish ticklabel size.

ax.plot(x,y)
ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(labelsize=8)

Option 5: enlarge figure size.

fig,ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8,4))

ax.plot(x,y)

edited May 28 '20 at 14:26

answered May 28 '20 at 14:09

Alessandro Peca

873
1
15
40

rotation is not recognized; valid keywords are ['size', 'width', 'color', 'tickdir', 'pad', 'labelsize', 'labelcolor', 'zorder', 'gridOn', 'tick1On', 'tick2On', 'label1On', 'label2On', 'length', 'direction', 'left', 'bottom', 'right', 'top', 'labelleft', 'labelbottom', 'labelright', 'labeltop' – Caledonian26 May 28 '20 at 14:14
Option 2 worked fine for me, but why did option 1 give me that error? – Caledonian26 May 28 '20 at 14:16
are you sure that you are using `ax.plot`? – Alessandro Peca May 28 '20 at 14:16
I used ax = plt.gca() then datamax.plot() and datamin.plot() which did not work – Caledonian26 May 28 '20 at 14:17
So, you are not using all my code, that's why. You can also try `plt.xticks(x, rotation=30)` – Alessandro Peca May 28 '20 at 14:19
1

plt.xticks(rotation=30) this works but plt.xticks(x, rotation=30) does not – Caledonian26 May 28 '20 at 14:25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 28 '20 at 14:25

Few options to solve your issue including those you mentioned:

x = np.arange(0, 10,0.555)
y = np.sin(x)
plt.xticks(x, x)
plt.plot(x,y)

1) display only a fraction of each xtick (for instance only year in your case)

plt.figure()
plt.plot(x,y)
short_xticks = [f'{i:.1f}' for i in x]
plt.xticks(x, short_xticks)

2) make a wider figure (display all the ticks labels)

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(15,5))
plt.xticks(x)
plt.plot(x,y)

3) rotate the xticks by 90 degrees

plt.figure()
plt.xticks(x, rotation=90)
plt.plot(x,y)

4) take one every n xtick (here n=2)

plt.figure()
plt.xticks(x[::2])
plt.plot(x,y)

plt.show()