Major and minor ticks in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Major and Minor Ticks in Matplotlib

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple line chart to show the sales trend over 10 days. To make the chart easier to read, you want to add both major and minor ticks on the x-axis.

🎯 Goal: Build a matplotlib line plot with major ticks every 2 days and minor ticks every day on the x-axis.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list called days with values from 1 to 10.

Create a list called sales with these exact values: 5, 7, 9, 6, 8, 10, 7, 9, 11, 8.

Create a plot with days on the x-axis and sales on the y-axis.

Set major ticks on the x-axis at every 2 days using MultipleLocator(2).

Set minor ticks on the x-axis at every 1 day using MultipleLocator(1).

Display the plot.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

In real life, clear charts with well-placed ticks help people understand data trends easily, like sales over time or temperature changes.

💼 Career

Data scientists and analysts often customize plots to make reports and dashboards more readable and professional.

1

Create the data lists

Create a list called days with values from 1 to 10, and a list called sales with these exact values: 5, 7, 9, 6, 8, 10, 7, 9, 11, 8.

Matplotlib

# Create the days and sales lists
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create lists. For days, list numbers 1 through 10. For sales, use the exact numbers given.

2

Import matplotlib and set up the plot

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and import MultipleLocator from matplotlib.ticker. Then create a plot with days on the x-axis and sales on the y-axis using plt.plot(days, sales).

Matplotlib

days = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
sales = [5, 7, 9, 6, 8, 10, 7, 9, 11, 8]

# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and MultipleLocator
# Create a plot with days and sales
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and from matplotlib.ticker import MultipleLocator. Then call plt.plot(days, sales) to create the line chart.

3

Add major and minor ticks on the x-axis

Use plt.gca() to get the current axes and assign it to ax. Then set major ticks on the x-axis every 2 days using ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(MultipleLocator(2)). Set minor ticks on the x-axis every 1 day using ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(MultipleLocator(1)).

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.ticker import MultipleLocator

days = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
sales = [5, 7, 9, 6, 8, 10, 7, 9, 11, 8]

plt.plot(days, sales)

# Get current axes as ax
# Set major ticks every 2 days
# Set minor ticks every 1 day
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use plt.gca() to get the axes. Then use ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(MultipleLocator(2)) and ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(MultipleLocator(1)) to set ticks.

4

Display the plot

Use plt.show() to display the plot with major and minor ticks on the x-axis.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.ticker import MultipleLocator

days = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
sales = [5, 7, 9, 6, 8, 10, 7, 9, 11, 8]

plt.plot(days, sales)

ax = plt.gca()
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(MultipleLocator(2))
ax.xaxis.set_minor_locator(MultipleLocator(1))

# Display the plot
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call plt.show() to open the plot window and see the chart with ticks.