matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter

Axes.scatter(x, y, s=None, c=None, marker=None, cmap=None, norm=None, vmin=None, vmax=None, alpha=None, linewidths=None, verts=<deprecated parameter>, edgecolors=None, *, plotnonfinite=False, data=None, **kwargs)[source]

A scatter plot of y vs. x with varying marker size and/or color.

Parameters:
x, yfloat or array-like, shape (n, )

The data positions.

sfloat or array-like, shape (n, ), optional

The marker size in points**2. Default is rcParams['lines.markersize'] ** 2.

carray-like or list of colors or color, optional

The marker colors. Possible values:

  • A scalar or sequence of n numbers to be mapped to colors using cmap and norm.
  • A 2-D array in which the rows are RGB or RGBA.
  • A sequence of colors of length n.
  • A single color format string.

Note that c should not be a single numeric RGB or RGBA sequence because that is indistinguishable from an array of values to be colormapped. If you want to specify the same RGB or RGBA value for all points, use a 2-D array with a single row. Otherwise, value- matching will have precedence in case of a size matching with x and y.

If you wish to specify a single color for all points prefer the color keyword argument.

Defaults to None. In that case the marker color is determined by the value of color, facecolor or facecolors. In case those are not specified or None, the marker color is determined by the next color of the Axes' current "shape and fill" color cycle. This cycle defaults to rcParams["axes.prop_cycle"] (default: cycler('color', ['#1f77b4', '#ff7f0e', '#2ca02c', '#d62728', '#9467bd', '#8c564b', '#e377c2', '#7f7f7f', '#bcbd22', '#17becf'])).

markerMarkerStyle, default: rcParams["scatter.marker"] (default: 'o')

The marker style. marker can be either an instance of the class or the text shorthand for a particular marker. See matplotlib.markers for more information about marker styles.

cmapstr or Colormap, default: rcParams["image.cmap"] (default: 'viridis')

A Colormap instance or registered colormap name. cmap is only used if c is an array of floats.

normNormalize, default: None

If c is an array of floats, norm is used to scale the color data, c, in the range 0 to 1, in order to map into the colormap cmap. If None, use the default colors.Normalize.

vmin, vmaxfloat, default: None

vmin and vmax are used in conjunction with the default norm to map the color array c to the colormap cmap. If None, the respective min and max of the color array is used. It is deprecated to use vmin/vmax when norm is given.

alphafloat, default: None

The alpha blending value, between 0 (transparent) and 1 (opaque).

linewidthsfloat or array-like, default: rcParams["lines.linewidth"] (default: 1.5)

The linewidth of the marker edges. Note: The default edgecolors is 'face'. You may want to change this as well.

edgecolors{'face', 'none', None} or color or sequence of color, default: rcParams["scatter.edgecolors"] (default: 'face')

The edge color of the marker. Possible values:

  • 'face': The edge color will always be the same as the face color.
  • 'none': No patch boundary will be drawn.
  • A color or sequence of colors.

For non-filled markers, the edgecolors kwarg is ignored and forced to 'face' internally.

plotnonfinitebool, default: False

Set to plot points with nonfinite c, in conjunction with set_bad.
Returns:
PathCollection
Other Parameters:
**kwargsCollection properties

See also

plot
To plot scatter plots when markers are identical in size and color.

Notes

  • The plot function will be faster for scatterplots where markers don't vary in size or color.
  • Any or all of x, y, s, and c may be masked arrays, in which case all masks will be combined and only unmasked points will be plotted.
  • Fundamentally, scatter works with 1-D arrays; x, y, s, and c may be input as N-D arrays, but within scatter they will be flattened. The exception is c, which will be flattened only if its size matches the size of x and y.

Note

In addition to the above described arguments, this function can take a data keyword argument. If such a data argument is given, the following arguments can also be string s, which is interpreted as data[s] (unless this raises an exception): x, y, s, linewidths, edgecolors, c, facecolor, facecolors, color.

Objects passed as data must support item access (data[s]) and membership test (s in data).