How to equalize the scales of x-axis and y-axis in matplotlib

Question

You need to dig a bit deeper into the api to do this:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.plot(range(5))
plt.xlim(-3, 3)
plt.ylim(-3, 3)
plt.gca().set_aspect('equal', adjustable='box')
plt.draw()

doc for set_aspect

plt.axis('scaled')

works well for me.

See the documentation on plt.axis(). This:

plt.axis('equal')

doesn't work because it changes the limits of the axis to make circles appear circular. What you want is:

plt.axis('square')

This creates a square plot with equal axes.

Try something like:

import pylab as p
p.plot(x,y)
p.axis('equal')
p.show()