How can I remove the top and right axis in matplotlib?

Question

This is the suggested Matplotlib 3 solution from the official website HERE:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

x = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi, 100)
y = np.sin(x)

ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.plot(x, y)

# Hide the right and top spines
ax.spines['right'].set_visible(False)
ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)

# Only show ticks on the left and bottom spines
ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position('left')
ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('bottom')

plt.show()

Alternatively, this

def simpleaxis(ax):
    ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)
    ax.spines['right'].set_visible(False)
    ax.get_xaxis().tick_bottom()
    ax.get_yaxis().tick_left()

seems to achieve the same effect on an axis without losing rotated label support.

(Matplotlib 1.0.1; solution inspired by this).

[edit] matplotlib in now (2013-10) on version 1.3.0 which includes this

That ability was actually just added, and you need the Subversion version for it. You can see the example code here.

I am just updating to say that there's a better example online now. Still need the Subversion version though, there hasn't been a release with this yet.

[edit] Matplotlib 0.99.0 RC1 was just released, and includes this capability.

_{(This is more of an extension comment, in addition to the comprehensive answers here.)}

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Note that we can hide each of these three elements independently of each other:

• To hide the border (aka "spine"): ax.set_frame_on(False) or ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)

• To hide the ticks: ax.tick_params(top=False)

• To hide the labels: ax.tick_params(labeltop=False)

If you need to remove it from all your plots, you can remove spines in style settings (style sheet or rcParams). E.g:

import matplotlib as mpl

mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.right'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.top'] = False

If you want to remove all spines:

mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.left'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.right'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.top'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.bottom'] = False

Library Seaborn has this built in with function .despine().

Just add:

import seaborn as sns

Now create your graph. And add at the end:

sns.despine()

If you look at some of the default parameter values of the function it removes the top and right spine and keeps the bottom and left spine:

sns.despine(top=True, right=True, left=False, bottom=False)

Check out further documentation here: https://seaborn.pydata.org/generated/seaborn.despine.html