The Figure & Axes

Matplotlib is a Python library for creating charts and visualizations — and every chart you draw lives inside two objects: a Figure (the whole canvas) and one or more Axes (the individual plot areas).

Learn The Figure & Axes in our free Matplotlib course — a beginner-friendly interactive lesson with worked examples, a practice exercise and a quick reference.

Part of the free Matplotlib course at LearnCodingFast — hands-on lessons with examples you run in your browser, plus practice exercises and a quick quiz.

In this lesson you'll meet fig, ax = plt.subplots() and learn the difference between the quick pyplot interface and the explicit object-oriented interface.

Think of the Figure as a blank sheet of paper and an Axes as a single chart drawn on that paper. A Figure can hold one Axes or a whole grid of them, but each Axes has its own data, x-axis, and y-axis.

The cleanest way to get both at once is plt.subplots() , which returns a Figure and an Axes together so you always know exactly which object you're working with.

What you'll see: a single chart with a blue line that rises, dips, peaks at x=4, then eases down. It looks just like a normal plot — but now you hold explicit references to the Figure ( fig ) and the Axes ( ax ).

Matplotlib offers two ways to build the same chart. The pyplot interface ( plt.plot ) quietly tracks a "current" Axes for you. The object-oriented interface ( ax.plot ) makes that Axes explicit.

What you'll see: two windows, one after the other, each showing the same upward parabola. The only difference is the code style — plt.title versus ax.set_title — proving the two interfaces produce identical results.

You control how big the canvas is with figsize=(width, height) in inches, and you can give the whole Figure a heading with fig.suptitle() .

What you'll see: a noticeably wider-than-tall chart with a bold "Monthly Visitors" heading across the very top of the Figure, sitting above the plotted line.

Replace each ___ to build a Figure and Axes and draw on it.

❌ AttributeError: 'Axes' object has no attribute 'title'

On an Axes use ax.set_title("...") , not ax.title("...") . The plain title form belongs to plt .

Each plt.show() displays and then clears the current figure. Build a fresh fig, ax for the next chart.

Build a wide Figure with one Axes, plot some data, and add a figure-wide title.

Lesson 2 complete — you understand the canvas!

You learned that a Figure holds Axes, met plt.subplots() , and saw the difference between the pyplot and object-oriented interfaces.

🚀 Up next: Your First Line Plot — plot multiple series and shape real data into lines.

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