How to plot bar graphs with same X coordinates side by side ('dodged')

Question

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt  gridnumber = range(1,4)  b1 = plt.bar(gridnumber, [0.2, 0.3, 0.1], width=0.4,                 label="Bar 1", align="center")  b2 = plt.bar(gridnumber, [0.3, 0.2, 0.2], color="red", width=0.4,                 label="Bar 2", align="center")   plt.ylim([0,0.5]) plt.xlim([0,4]) plt.xticks(gridnumber) plt.legend() plt.show() 

Currently b1 and b2 overlap each other. How do I plot them separately like so:

Answer 1

There is an example in the matplotlib site. Basically, you just shift the x values by width. Here is the relevant bit:

import numpy as np import matplotlib.pyplot as plt  N = 5 menMeans = (20, 35, 30, 35, 27) menStd =   (2, 3, 4, 1, 2)  ind = np.arange(N)  # the x locations for the groups width = 0.35       # the width of the bars  fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) rects1 = ax.bar(ind, menMeans, width, color='royalblue', yerr=menStd)  womenMeans = (25, 32, 34, 20, 25) womenStd =   (3, 5, 2, 3, 3) rects2 = ax.bar(ind+width, womenMeans, width, color='seagreen', yerr=womenStd)  # add some ax.set_ylabel('Scores') ax.set_title('Scores by group and gender') ax.set_xticks(ind + width / 2) ax.set_xticklabels( ('G1', 'G2', 'G3', 'G4', 'G5') )  ax.legend( (rects1[0], rects2[0]), ('Men', 'Women') )  plt.show() 

Answer 2

Below answer will explain each and every line of code in the simplest manner possible:

# Numbers of pairs of bars you want N = 3  # Data on X-axis  # Specify the values of blue bars (height) blue_bar = (23, 25, 17) # Specify the values of orange bars (height) orange_bar = (19, 18, 14)  # Position of bars on x-axis ind = np.arange(N)  # Figure size plt.figure(figsize=(10,5))  # Width of a bar  width = 0.3         # Plotting plt.bar(ind, blue_bar , width, label='Blue bar label') plt.bar(ind + width, orange_bar, width, label='Orange bar label')  plt.xlabel('Here goes x-axis label') plt.ylabel('Here goes y-axis label') plt.title('Here goes title of the plot')  # xticks() # First argument - A list of positions at which ticks should be placed # Second argument -  A list of labels to place at the given locations plt.xticks(ind + width / 2, ('Xtick1', 'Xtick3', 'Xtick3'))  # Finding the best position for legends and putting it plt.legend(loc='best') plt.show()