Line colors and width in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Line colors and width

📖 Scenario: You are working on a simple data visualization project. You want to draw lines on a graph with different colors and thicknesses to make the chart easy to understand.

🎯 Goal: Create a line plot with three lines. Each line should have a specific color and line width as given.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create three lists of y-values for three lines

Create a variable for the x-values

Plot each line with a specific color and line width

Display the plot

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Line colors and widths help make charts clearer and easier to read in reports, presentations, and dashboards.

💼 Career

Data scientists and analysts use line styling to highlight important trends and differences in data visualizations.

1

Create data for the lines

Create a list called x with values [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Create three lists called y1, y2, and y3 with values [1, 4, 9, 16, 25], [2, 3, 5, 7, 11], and [5, 7, 6, 8, 7] respectively.

Matplotlib

# Create the x values and three y values lists
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create lists with the exact numbers given.

2

Import matplotlib and set up the plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt. Create a variable called fig, ax by calling plt.subplots().

Matplotlib

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
y1 = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
y2 = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11]
y3 = [5, 7, 6, 8, 7]

# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and create fig, ax with plt.subplots()
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and plt.subplots() to prepare the plot.

3

Plot the lines with colors and widths

Use ax.plot() to plot the three lines with x and y1, y2, y3. Set the line colors to 'red', 'green', and 'blue' respectively. Set the line widths to 2, 4, and 6 respectively.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
y1 = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
y2 = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11]
y3 = [5, 7, 6, 8, 7]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

# Plot y1 with color 'red' and linewidth 2
# Plot y2 with color 'green' and linewidth 4
# Plot y3 with color 'blue' and linewidth 6
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use color='colorname' and linewidth=number inside ax.plot().

4

Display the plot

Use plt.show() to display the plot with the three colored lines of different widths.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
y1 = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
y2 = [2, 3, 5, 7, 11]
y3 = [5, 7, 6, 8, 7]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

ax.plot(x, y1, color='red', linewidth=2)
ax.plot(x, y2, color='green', linewidth=4)
ax.plot(x, y3, color='blue', linewidth=6)

# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.show() to open the plot window.