Polar Plots

A polar plot positions each point by an angle and a radius instead of x and y, wrapping your data around a circle — ideal for directions, cycles, and radar-style comparisons.

Learn Polar Plots in our free Matplotlib course — a beginner-friendly interactive lesson with worked examples, a practice exercise and a quick reference.

Part of the free Matplotlib course at LearnCodingFast — hands-on lessons with examples you run in your browser, plus practice exercises and a quick quiz.

In this lesson you'll create polar axes, plot curves with theta and r, build a polar bar (radar-style) chart, and control the angle direction, offset, and radial ticks.

What You'll Learn in This Lesson

1 Creating Polar Axes

Polar plots live on special axes. Create them by passing subplot_kw={"projection": "polar"} to plt.subplots() . Then plot as usual, but the first argument is the angle theta in radians and the second is the radius r . The result wraps around a circle instead of running along a straight axis.

What you'll see: a symmetrical flower-like curve with several petals radiating from the center. The angular gridlines fan out like spokes and the circular gridlines mark the radius, giving the plot its distinctive round frame.

2 Polar Bars: Radar-Style Charts

Call ax.bar() on polar axes and each bar becomes a wedge fanning out from the center — a layout that reads like a radar or wind-rose chart. Space the categories evenly around the circle with np.linspace(0, 2 * np.pi, n, endpoint=False) , then label each angle with ax.set_xticks() and ax.set_xticklabels() .

What you'll see: six green wedges spreading out from the center like slices of a fan, each reaching a different distance based on its stat. The category names sit around the rim, making it easy to spot that Defense (the longest wedge) is this player's strength.

3 Direction, Offset & Radial Ticks

By default zero degrees points right and angles grow counter-clockwise — but compasses and clocks don't work that way. Use ax.set_theta_zero_location("N") to put zero at the top and ax.set_theta_direction(-1) to sweep clockwise. Tidy up the radius with ax.set_rticks() and cap it with ax.set_rmax() .

What you'll see: a wind rose where North sits at the very top and the directions run clockwise N to E to S to W, just like a real compass. The blue wedges show wind strength per direction, and the radial rings are labeled at 2, 4, 6, and 8.

🎯 Your Turn: Fill in the Blanks

Replace each ___ to create polar axes and plot a spiral that runs clockwise.

📋 Common Errors & Quick Reference

You forgot the projection. Pass subplot_kw={"projection": "polar"} to plt.subplots() .

Angles must be in radians . Convert degrees with np.radians(deg) or build them from np.pi .

Use endpoint=False in np.linspace so the last angle doesn't duplicate the first.

Call

What It Does

subplot_kw={"projection":"polar"}

Make polar axes

ax.plot(theta, r)

Curve by angle and radius

ax.bar(angles, vals)

Radar-style wedges

ax.set_theta_zero_location("N")

Move the zero angle

ax.set_theta_direction(-1)

Sweep clockwise

🎯 Mini-Challenge: Compare Two Players

Draw a radar-style line chart comparing two players across six skills. Close each loop so the shapes connect all the way around.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Lesson complete — you can plot around a circle!

You created polar axes, plotted curves with theta and r, built radar-style polar bars, and controlled the zero location, direction, and radial ticks to match real-world conventions.

🚀 Up next: Density: hexbin & hist2d — visualize where points pile up.

Practice quiz

Continue this course

• Previous: Stem, Step & Stair Plots
• Next: Density: hexbin & hist2d