how to show tick labels on top of matplotlib plot?

Question

In matplotlib what is the way to have tick labels both at the bottom and in the top x axis? I have searched a lot and still can't find how to do it.

Check this post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11410796/turn-off-the-the-upper-right-axis-tick-marks — CT Zhu, Sep 15 '13 at 02:36
@CTZhu, yep I had found it but it seems to be related to changing the position of the xaxis to the top. — elyase, Sep 15 '13 at 02:38

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 15 '13 at 16:06

12

Sorry, I lied in the comments. You can do this easily (but it seems to be badly documented)

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1)
ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(labeltop='on')

output

answered Sep 15 '13 at 16:06

tacaswell

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Yes this is the best way! I wonder why there are any documentation about it!I link [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1992640/vertical-xtick-labels-on-top-not-bottom) too. – G M Sep 15 '13 at 16:31

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

3

You can do it with twiny():

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax2 = ax1.twiny()
X2tick_location= ax1.xaxis.get_ticklocs() #Get the tick locations in data coordinates as a numpy array
ax2.set_xticks(X2tick_location)
ax2.set_xticklabels(X2tick_location)
plt.show()

enter image description here

Have a look to this question too for more elaborate plots.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

Community

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answered Sep 15 '13 at 10:50

G M

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kjohnsen · Answer 3 · 2022-08-11T20:35:06.707

0

This seems to be the standard way as of v3.5:

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.tick_params('x', top=True, labeltop=True)

Note that the top keyword draws the ticks and the labeltop keyword draws the labels. Documentation here.

edited Aug 11 '22 at 20:35

answered Aug 11 '22 at 20:26

kjohnsen

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how to show tick labels on top of matplotlib plot?

3 Answers3