194

In Matplotlib, I make dashed grid lines as follows:

fig = pylab.figure()    
ax = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
ax.yaxis.grid(color='gray', linestyle='dashed')

however, I can't find out how (or even if it is possible) to make the grid lines be drawn behind other graph elements, such as bars. Changing the order of adding the grid versus adding other elements makes no difference.

Is it possible to make it so that the grid lines appear behind everything else?

Saullo G. P. Castro
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Andrew
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9 Answers9

187

According to this - http://matplotlib.1069221.n5.nabble.com/axis-elements-and-zorder-td5346.html - you can use Axis.set_axisbelow(True)

(I am currently installing matplotlib for the first time, so have no idea if that's correct - I just found it by googling "matplotlib z order grid" - "z order" is typically used to describe this kind of thing (z being the axis "out of the page"))

Hendrik
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andrew cooke
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  • Is it possible to have the gridlines below the bar/line while retaining the labels on top? I also posted this quesiton separately http://stackoverflow.com/questions/29522447/in-matplotlib-is-there-a-way-to-set-gridlines-below-bars-lines-patches-while-re – joelostblom Apr 08 '15 at 18:24
  • It might be this http://matplotlib.1069221.n5.nabble.com/axis-elements-and-zorder-td5346.html, ancient thread though. – Jacques Kvam Oct 12 '18 at 05:57
146

To me, it was unclear how to apply andrew cooke's answer, so this is a complete solution based on that:

ax.set_axisbelow(True)
ax.yaxis.grid(color='gray', linestyle='dashed')
Stefan
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77

If you want to validate the setting for all figures, you may set

plt.rc('axes', axisbelow=True)

or 

plt.rcParams['axes.axisbelow'] = True

It works for Matplotlib>=2.0.

Syrtis Major
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8

I had the same problem and the following worked:

[line.set_zorder(3) for line in ax.lines]
fig.show() # to update

Increase 3to a higher value if it does not work.

Saullo G. P. Castro
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7

You can also set the zorder kwarg in matplotlib.pyplot.grid

plt.grid(which='major', axis='y', zorder=-1.0)
Usman Tariq
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1

You can try to use one of Seaborn's styles. For instance:

import seaborn as sns  
sns.set_style("whitegrid")

Not only the gridlines will get behind but the looks are nicer.

Alvaro Fuentes
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1

For some (like me) it might be interesting to draw the grid behind only "some" of the other elements. For granular control of the draw order, you can use matplotlib.artist.Artist.set_zorder on the axes directly:

ax.yaxis.grid(color='gray', linestyle='dashed')
ax.set_zorder(3)

This is mentioned in the notes on matplotlib.axes.Axes.grid.

Christian
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0

Just make sure the points have a higher zorder value than the gridlines, e.g.:

plt.scatter(x,y,c="k",marker="x",zorder=2)

followed by

plt.grid(linestyle="--",alpha=0.5,zorder=1)
LW001
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John Paravantis
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0

These answers weren't working for me (zorder, axisbelow, set_zorder):

fig, ax = plt.subplots(3, 1, dpi=200)
ax[0].yaxis.grid(True, which='major', linestyle='--')
ax[0].boxplot(data, positions=[0, 0.5], widths=[0.5, 0.5])

Instead, changing the background color of the graph elements using patch_artist worked for me:

l = ax[0].boxplot(data, positions=[0, 0.5], widths=[0.5, 0.5],
  patch_artist=True)
for bplot in (l,):
  for patch, color in zip(bplot['boxes'], ['white', 'white']):
    patch.set_facecolor(color)
``
There
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