Glossary#

This glossary defines concepts and terminology specific to Matplotlib.

Figure#

The outermost container for a Matplotlib graphic. Think of this as the canvas to draw on.

This is implemented in the class Figure. For more details see Introduction to Figures.

Axes#

This is a container for what is often colloquially called a plot/chart/graph. It's a data area with Axises, i.e. coordinate directions, and includes data artists like lines, bars etc. as well as decorations like title, axis labels, legend.

Since most "plotting operations" are realized as methods on Axes this is the object users will mostly interact with.

Note: The term Axes was taken over from MATLAB. Think of this as a container spanned by the x- and y-axis, including decoration and data.

Axis#

A direction with a scale. The scale defines the mapping from data coordinates to screen coordinates. The Axis also includes the ticks and axis label.

Artist#

The base class for all graphical element that can be drawn. Examples are Lines, Rectangles, Text, Ticks, Legend, Axes, ...