How to prevent overlapping x-axis labels in sns.countplot

Question

For the plot

sns.countplot(x="HostRamSize",data=df)

I got the following graph with x-axis label mixing together, how do I avoid this? Should I change the size of the graph to solve this problem?

Could you add an example of `df`? (did not downvote). Could you not just turn the xlabel? — Cleb, Mar 01 '17 at 10:18
this question is poor, where is the raw data, code to re-create the df — EdChum, Mar 01 '17 at 10:19
@EdChum I just thought that there are some methods to enlarge the graph without looking into the details? — william007, Mar 01 '17 at 10:29
Maybe [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31594549/how-do-i-change-the-figure-size-for-a-seaborn-violin-plot) helps?! — Cleb, Mar 01 '17 at 10:36
Possible duplicate of [How do I change the figure size for a seaborn plot?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31594549/how-do-i-change-the-figure-size-for-a-seaborn-plot) — Paul H, Mar 06 '17 at 21:44

ImportanceOfBeingErnest · Answer 1 · 2018-01-17T10:33:10.567

96

Having a Series ds like this

import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(136)

l = "1234567890123"
categories = [ l[i:i+5]+" - "+l[i+1:i+6] for i in range(6)]
x = np.random.choice(categories, size=1000, 
            p=np.diff(np.array([0,0.7,2.8,6.5,8.5,9.3,10])/10.))
ds = pd.Series({"Column" : x})

there are several options to make the axis labels more readable.

Change figure size

plt.figure(figsize=(8,4)) # this creates a figure 8 inch wide, 4 inch high
sns.countplot(x="Column", data=ds)
plt.show()

Rotate the ticklabels

ax = sns.countplot(x="Column", data=ds)

ax.set_xticklabels(ax.get_xticklabels(), rotation=40, ha="right")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Decrease Fontsize

ax = sns.countplot(x="Column", data=ds)

ax.set_xticklabels(ax.get_xticklabels(), fontsize=7)
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Of course any combination of those would work equally well.

Setting rcParams

The figure size and the xlabel fontsize can be set globally using rcParams

plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = (8, 4)
plt.rcParams["xtick.labelsize"] = 7

This might be useful to put on top of a juypter notebook such that those settings apply for any figure generated within. Unfortunately rotating the xticklabels is not possible using rcParams.

I guess it's worth noting that the same strategies would naturally also apply for seaborn barplot, matplotlib bar plot or pandas.bar.

edited Jan 17 '18 at 10:33

answered Mar 08 '17 at 14:41

ImportanceOfBeingErnest

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`AttributeError: 'FacetGrid' object has no attribute 'get_xticklabels'` when trying to rotate the ticklabels. – PlsWork Jan 26 '20 at 23:43
@AnnaVopureta I didn't claim this works with a FacetGrid. It works with any seaborn function that returns an axes. – ImportanceOfBeingErnest Jan 26 '20 at 23:44
It fails when I use it for the following seaborn function that returns an axis: `ax = sns.catplot(y="Dataset", x="Size (bytes)", hue="Implementation", data=pdData, height=6, kind="bar", palette="muted", legend=False)` – PlsWork Jan 26 '20 at 23:46
1

I know. Because catplot returns a FacetGrid, not an axes. – ImportanceOfBeingErnest Jan 26 '20 at 23:47
I wasn't aware of that, my bad. How to solve the overlapping axis labels problem for catplot (and other functions that return FacetGrid)? – PlsWork Jan 26 '20 at 23:47
Here is one way to do it: `for axes in ax.axes.flat: axes.set_xticklabels(axes.get_xticklabels(), rotation=65, horizontalalignment='right')` Solution is described here: https://www.drawingfromdata.com/how-to-rotate-axis-labels-in-seaborn-and-matplotlib – PlsWork Jan 26 '20 at 23:53

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 26 '20 at 18:13

13

You can rotate the x_labels and increase their font size using the xticks methods of pandas.pyplot.

For Example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure(figsize=(10,5))
chart = sns.countplot(x="HostRamSize",data=df)

plt.xticks(
    rotation=45, 
    horizontalalignment='right',
    fontweight='light',
    fontsize='x-large'  
)

For more such modifications you can refer this link: Drawing from Data

answered Apr 26 '20 at 18:13

Deepam Gupta

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You are a genius! This is the best answer that I have seen that does **not** rely on the `ax.set_xticklabels(ax.get_xticklabels(), fontsize=7)` method. THANK YOU! – shadow_dev Aug 04 '20 at 15:56

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 14 '18 at 06:16

8

If you just want to make sure xticks labels are not squeezed together, you can set a proper fig size and try fig.autofmt_xdate().

This function will automatically align and rotate the labels.

answered Apr 14 '18 at 06:16

hui chen

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 03 '21 at 09:49

3

I don't know whether it is an option for you but maybe turning the graphic could be a solution (instead of plotting on x=, do it on y=), such that:

sns.countplot(y="HostRamSize",data=df)

answered Aug 03 '21 at 09:49

Carles S

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Akash Desai · Answer 5 · 2020-11-14T18:37:45.343

2

plt.figure(figsize=(15,10)) #adjust the size of plot
ax=sns.countplot(x=df['Location'],data=df,hue='label',palette='mako')

ax.set_xticklabels(ax.get_xticklabels(), rotation=40, ha="right")  #it will rotate text on x axis

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

you can try this code & change size & rotation according to your need.

edited Nov 14 '20 at 18:37

answered Nov 14 '20 at 06:58

Akash Desai

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Please don't post code-only answers. For future readers, it's far more interesting to see explained why this answers the question. And answers with explanations tend to have better acceptance. – Akif Nov 14 '20 at 09:32

How to prevent overlapping x-axis labels in sns.countplot

5 Answers5

Change figure size

Rotate the ticklabels

Decrease Fontsize

Setting rcParams

Linked

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