How to Increase the Size of a Bar Plot in Python

In this tutorial, we’ll be learning how to increase the size of a bar plot in Python. We will use matplotlib and pandas libraries which offer strong capabilities for creating a wide range of static, animated, and interactive plots in Python. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Step 1: Importing the Necessary Libraries

The first step is to import the necessary libraries, which are matplotlib and pandas. If you do not have these libraries installed, you can install them via pip.

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import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Step 2: Load Data with Pandas

To illustrate the process, we will load some datasets using pandas. For your own needs, you might load different data.

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data = {
    'Fruits': ['apples', 'oranges', 'cherries', 'bananas'],
    'Amount': [20, 33, 52, 10]
}
 
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

Step 3: Plotting the Bar Plot

After loading the data, the next step is to plot the data. Here we will plot a basic bar plot.

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plt.bar(df['Fruits'], df['Amount'])

Step 4: Increase the Size of the Bar Plot

This is where we actually increase the size of our plot. It can be done by simply adjusting the figure size before we plot the bars.

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plt.figure(figsize=(12,8))
plt.bar(df['Fruits'], df['Amount'])
plt.show()

Note: In the figsize attribute, you can put any size you want. The first number is plot width and the second number is plot height.

Full Code

Here is the full code for increasing a bar plot size in Python.

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import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
 
# data
data = {
    'Fruits': ['apples', 'oranges', 'cherries', 'bananas'],
    'Amount': [20, 33, 52, 10]
}
df = pd.DataFrame(data)
 
# increase size and then plot
plt.figure(figsize=(12,8))
plt.bar(df['Fruits'], df['Amount'])
plt.show()

Conclusion

Hopefully, this quick tutorial was helpful in understanding how to increase the size of a bar plot in Python. Don’t hesitate to fiddle with the size numbers to make it perfect for your needs. Happy plotting!