In Matplotlib, what does the argument mean in fig.add_subplot(111)?

Question

Sometimes I come across code such as this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] y = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25] fig = plt.figure() fig.add_subplot(111) plt.scatter(x, y) plt.show() 

Which produces:

I've been reading the documentation like crazy but I can't find an explanation for the 111. sometimes I see a 212.

What does the argument of fig.add_subplot() mean?

Answer 1

I think this would be best explained by the following picture:

To initialize the above, one would type:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt fig = plt.figure() fig.add_subplot(221)   #top left fig.add_subplot(222)   #top right fig.add_subplot(223)   #bottom left fig.add_subplot(224)   #bottom right  plt.show()