Axes.colorbar¶

Axes.colorbar(**kwargs)[source]¶

Add an inset colorbar or an outer colorbar along the edge of the axes.

Parameters

mappable (mappable, sequence of artist, sequence of color-spec, or colormap-spec) – There are four options here:
1. A mappable object. Basically, any object with a get_cmap method, like the objects returned by contourf and pcolormesh.
2. A sequence of matplotlib artists. Any object with a get_color method will do, like Line2D instances. A colormap will be generated from the colors of these objects, and colorbar levels will be selected using values. If values is None, we try to infer them by converting the handle labels returned by get_label to float. Otherwise, it is set to np.linspace(0, 1, len(mappable)).
3. A sequence of hex strings, color string names, or RGB tuples. A colormap will be generated from these colors, and colorbar levels will be selected using values. If values is None, it is set to np.linspace(0, 1, len(mappable)).
4. A Colormap instance. In this case, a colorbar will be drawn using this colormap and with levels determined by values. If values is None, it is set to np.linspace(0, 1, cmap.N).
values (sequence of float or str, optional) – Ignored if mappable is a mappable object. This maps each color or plot handle in the mappable list to numeric values, from which a colormap and normalizer are constructed. These can also be strings, in which case the list indices are used for tick locations and the strings are applied as tick labels.

loc, location (str, optional) – The colorbar location. Default is rc['colorbar.loc'] = 'right'. Valid location keys are shown in the below table.

Location	Valid keys
outer left	`'left'`, `'l'`
outer right	`'right'`, `'r'`
outer bottom	`'bottom'`, `'b'`
outer top	`'top'`, `'t'`
default inset	`'best'`, `'inset'`, `'i'`, `0`
upper right inset	`'upper right'`, `'ur'`, `1`
upper left inset	`'upper left'`, `'ul'`, `2`
lower left inset	`'lower left'`, `'ll'`, `3`
lower right inset	`'lower right'`, `'lr'`, `4`
“filled”	`'fill'`

length (float or unit-spec, optional) – The colorbar length. For outer colorbars, default is rc['colorbar.length'] = 1.0 and units are relative to the axes width or height. For inset colorbars, default is rc['colorbar.insetlength'] = 8.0 and units are absolute. If float, units are em-widths. If string, interpreted by units.
shrink (float, optional) – Alias for length. This is included for consistency with matplotlib.figure.Figure.colorbar.
width (unit-spec, optional) – The colorbar width. For outer colorbars, default is rc['colorbar.width'] = 0.2. If float, units are inches. If string, interpreted by units. For inset colorbars, default is rc['colorbar.insetwidth'] = 1.2. If float, units are em-widths. If string, interpreted by units.
queue (bool, optional) – If True and loc is the same as an existing colorbar, the input arguments are added to a queue and this function returns None. This is used to “update” the same colorbar with successive ax.colorbar(...) calls. If False (the default) and loc is the same as an existing inset colorbar, the old colorbar is removed. If False and loc is an outer colorbar, the colorbars are stacked.
space (unit-spec, optional) – For outer colorbars only. The fixed space between the colorbar and the subplot edge. If float, units are em-widths. If string, interpreted by units. When the tight layout algorithm is active for the figure, this is adjusted automatically using pad. Otherwise, a suitable default is selected.
pad (unit-spec, optional) – For outer colorbars, this is the tight layout padding between the colorbar and the subplot. Default is rc['subplots.panelpad'] = 0.5. For inset colorbars, this is the fixed space between the axes edge and the colorbar. Default is rc['colorbar.insetpad'] = 0.7. If float, units are em-widths. If string, interpreted by units.
align ({'center', 'top', 't', 'bottom', 'b', 'left', 'l', 'right', 'r'}, optional) – For outer colorbars only. How to align the colorbar against the subplot edge. Default is 'center'. The values 'top' and 'bottom' are valid for left and right colorbars and 'left' and 'right' are valid for top and bottom colorbars. The default is always 'center'. Has no visible effect if length is 1.

Other Parameters

extend ({None, 'neither', 'both', 'min', 'max'}, optional) – Direction for drawing colorbar “extensions” (i.e. references to out-of-bounds data with a unique color). These are triangles by default. If None, we try to use the extend attribute on the mappable object. If the attribute is unavailable, we use 'neither'.
extendfrac (float, optional) – The length of the colorbar “extensions” relative to the length of the colorbar. This is a native matplotlib colorbar keyword.
extendsize (unit-spec, optional) – The length of the colorbar “extensions” in physical units. Default is rc['colorbar.insetextend'] = 0.9 for inset colorbars and rc['colorbar.extend'] = 1.3 for outer colorbars. If float, units are em-widths. If string, interpreted by units.
norm (norm-spec, optional) – Ignored if values is None. The normalizer for converting values to colormap colors. Passed to Norm.
norm_kw (dict-like, optional) – The normalizer settings. Passed to Norm.
reverse (bool, optional) – Whether to reverse the direction of the colorbar.
tickloc, ticklocation ({'bottom', 'top', 'left', 'right'}, optional) – Where to draw tick marks on the colorbar.
tickdir, tickdirection ({'out', 'in', 'inout'}, optional) – Direction of major and minor colorbar ticks.
tickminor (bool, optional) – Whether to add minor ticks using minorticks_on.
label, title (str, optional) – The colorbar label. The title keyword is also accepted for consistency with legend.
labelsize, labelweight, labelcolor (optional) – The font size, weight, and color for colorbar label text.
locator, ticks (locator-spec, optional) – Used to determine the colorbar tick positions. Passed to the Locator constructor function.
locator_kw (dict-like, optional) – The locator settings. Passed to Locator.
minorlocator, minorticks – As with locator, ticks but for the minor ticks.
minorlocator_kw – As with locator_kw, but for the minor ticks.
maxn (int, optional) – Used if locator is None. Determines the maximum number of levels that are ticked. Default depends on the colorbar length relative to the font size. The name maxn is meant to be reminiscent of MaxNLocator.
maxn_minor – As with maxn, but for the minor ticks.
format, formatter, ticklabels (formatter-spec, optional) – The tick label format. Passed to the Formatter constructor function.
formatter_kw (dict-like, optional) – The formatter settings. Passed to Formatter.
rotation (float, optional) – The tick label rotation. Default is 0.
ticklabelsize, ticklabelweight, ticklabelcolor (optional) – The font size, weight, and color for colorbar tick labels.
grid, edges, drawedges (bool, optional) – Whether to draw level dividers (i.e., gridlines) between each distinct color. Default is rc['colorbar.grid'] = False.
frame, frameon (bool, optional) – For inset colorbars only. Indicates whether to draw a “frame”, just like legend. Default is rc['colorbar.frameon'] = True.
a, alpha, framealpha, fc, facecolor, framecolor, ec, edgecolor, ew, edgewidth (optional) – For inset colorbars only. Controls the transparency and color of the frame. Defaults are rc['colorbar.framealpha'] = 0.8 and rc['colorbar.framecolor'].
lw, linewidth, c, color (optional) – Controls the line width and edge color for both the colorbar outline and the level dividers.
edgefix (bool or float, optional) – Whether to fix the common issue where white lines appear between adjacent patches in saved vector graphics. This can slow down figure rendering. Default is rc.edgefix = True. If True, a small default linewidth is used to cover up the white lines. If float, this linewidth is used.
rasterize (bool, optional) – Whether to rasterize the colorbar solids. The matplotlib default is True but we change this to rc['colorbar.rasterize'] because rasterization can cause misalignment between edges and the level patches.
orientation ({None, 'horizontal', 'vertical'}, optional) – The colorbar orientation. By default this depends on the “side” of the subplot or figure where the colorbar is drawn. Inset colorbars are always horizontal.
**kwargs – Passed to colorbar.