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How to Adjust Line Thickness in Matplotlib

by Erma Khan

You can easily adjust the thickness of lines in Matplotlib plots by using the linewidth argument function, which uses the following syntax:

matplotlib.pyplot.plot(x, y, linewidth=1.5)

By default, the line width is 1.5 but you can adjust this to any value greater than 0.

This tutorial provides several examples of how to use this function in practice.

Example 1: Adjust the Thickness of One Line

The following code shows how to create a simple line chart and set the line width to 3:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

#define x and y values
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y1 = np.sin(x)*np.exp(-x/3)

#create line plot with line width set to 3
plt.plot(x, y1, linewidth=3)

#display plot
plt.show()

Adjust line width in matplotlib

Example 2: Adjust the Thickness of Multiple Lines

The following code shows how to adjust the thickness of multiple lines at once:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

#define x and y values
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y1 = np.sin(x)*np.exp(-x/3)
y2 = np.cos(x)*np.exp(-x/5)

#create line plot with multiple lines
plt.plot(x, y1, linewidth=3)
plt.plot(x, y2, linewidth=1)

#display plot
plt.show()

Adjust multiple line thicknesses in matplotlib in Python

Example 3: Adjust Line Thickness in Legends

The following code shows how to create multiple lines with different thicknesses and create a legend that displays the the thickness of each line accordingly:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

#define x and y values
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y1 = np.sin(x)*np.exp(-x/3)
y2 = np.cos(x)*np.exp(-x/5)

#create line plot with multiple lines
plt.plot(x, y1, linewidth=3, label='y1')
plt.plot(x, y2, linewidth=1, label='y2')

#add legend
plt.legend()

#display plot
plt.show()

Adjust line width in legend of matplotlib

Additional Resources

How to Fill in Areas Between Lines in Matplotlib
How to Remove Ticks from Matplotlib Plots
How to Place the Legend Outside of a Matplotlib Plot

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