Customizing Spines & Axis Position

Reviewed & published by Brayan K

Spines are the four border lines around a plot, and customizing them lets you hide clutter, recolor edges, or move the axes to cross at the origin for a clean, professional look.

Part of the free Matplotlib course at LearnCodingFast — hands-on lessons with worked examples and the output they print, plus practice exercises and a quick quiz.

In this lesson you'll hide the top and right borders, recolor and thicken spines, shorten them with bounds, and move the left and bottom spines to zero for a centered, math-style axis.

What You'll Learn in This Lesson

• Accessing the four spines via ax.spines
• Hiding the top and right spines for a minimalist chart
• Recoloring and thickening spines
• Shortening a spine with set_bounds()
• Moving spines to zero to center the axes
• Keeping ticks aligned with moved spines

1 Hiding the Top & Right Spines

Every Axes has four spines stored in ax.spines: 'top', 'bottom', 'left', and 'right'. The single most popular tweak in all of Matplotlib is hiding the top and right ones — it removes the box and instantly modernizes the chart.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y, color="crimson")

# Remove the boxy top and right borders
ax.spines["top"].set_visible(False)
ax.spines["right"].set_visible(False)

ax.set_title("Minimalist Sine Wave")
ax.set_xlabel("x")
ax.set_ylabel("sin(x)")

plt.show()

What you'll see: a crimson sine wave with only an L-shaped frame — the left and bottom spines remain, but the top and right borders are gone, so the chart feels open and uncluttered.

2 Recoloring, Thickening & Shortening Spines

A spine is a full artist, so you can restyle it. Use set_color() and set_linewidth() to change how it looks, and set_bounds(low, high) to draw it only across part of the axis — handy for emphasizing the range your data actually covers.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.arange(0, 10)
y = x ** 1.5

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y, marker="o", color="teal")

# Hide the clutter
ax.spines["top"].set_visible(False)
ax.spines["right"].set_visible(False)

# Restyle what remains
ax.spines["left"].set_color("darkorange")
ax.spines["left"].set_linewidth(3)
ax.spines["bottom"].set_linewidth(3)

# Shorten the bottom spine to the data range
ax.spines["bottom"].set_bounds(0, 9)

ax.set_title("Styled Spines")

plt.show()

3 Centering the Axes at Zero

To get the classic math-textbook cross through the origin, move the left and bottom spines to the data value 0 with set_position('zero'), then hide the top and right spines. Finally, tell the ticks to follow by calling ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('bottom') and ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position('left').

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.linspace(-5, 5, 200)
y = x ** 3 - 4 * x

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y, color="purple")

# Move the left and bottom spines to cross at (0, 0)
ax.spines["left"].set_position("zero")
ax.spines["bottom"].set_position("zero")

# Drop the other two
ax.spines["top"].set_visible(False)
ax.spines["right"].set_visible(False)

# Keep ticks on the moved spines
ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position("bottom")
ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position("left")

ax.set_title("Axes Centered at the Origin")

plt.show()

What you'll see: the purple cubic curve passing through a cross formed by the x and y axes meeting at the center of the plot, with tick numbers running along both arms of the cross.

🎯 Your Turn: Fill in the Blanks

Replace each ___ to hide the top and right spines of this scatter plot.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.random.rand(30)
y = np.random.rand(30)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(x, y, color="seagreen")

# Hide the top spine
ax.spines["___"].set_visible(False)

# Hide the right spine
ax.spines["right"].set_visible(___)

ax.set_title("Clean Scatter")

# Display the figure
plt.___()

📋 Common Errors & Quick Reference

Spine names are lowercase. ✅ Use 'top', 'bottom', 'left', 'right' — never capitalized.

❌ I moved a spine but the ticks stayed put

Moving a spine does not move the ticks. ✅ Call ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('bottom') and ax.yaxis.set_ticks_position('left') after repositioning.

Spines live on an Axes, not on plt. ✅ Get an axes first with fig, ax = plt.subplots(), then use ax.spines[...].

🎯 Mini-Challenge: A Polished Cosine

Plot a cosine curve, hide the top and right spines, recolor the left and bottom spines gray, and thicken them to 1.5.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.linspace(0, 4 * np.pi, 200)
y = np.cos(x)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y, color="dodgerblue", linewidth=2)

# Clean frame: hide two, restyle two
for side in ["top", "right"]:
    ax.spines[side].set_visible(False)

for side in ["left", "bottom"]:
    ax.spines[side].set_color("gray")
    ax.spines[side].set_linewidth(1.5)

ax.set_title("Polished Cosine")
ax.set_xlabel("x")
ax.set_ylabel("cos(x)")

plt.show()

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot([-3, -1, 0, 1, 3], [9, 1, 0, 1, 9])

ax.spines["top"].set_visible(False)
ax.spines["right"].set_visible(False)
ax.spines["left"].set_position(("data", 0))
ax.spines["bottom"].set_position(("data", 0))

print("Spines by name:", sorted(ax.spines.keys()))
print("Top visible:   ", ax.spines["top"].get_visible())
print("Right visible: ", ax.spines["right"].get_visible())
print("Bottom visible:", ax.spines["bottom"].get_visible())
print("Left sits at:", ax.spines["left"].get_position())
print("Two spines left showing:", sum(ax.spines[s].get_visible() for s in ax.spines))

# ✅ Expected output:
# Spines by name: ['bottom', 'left', 'right', 'top']
# Top visible:    False
# Right visible:  False
# Bottom visible: True
# Left sits at: ('data', 0)
# Two spines left showing: 2

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Lesson complete — you control the frame!

You hid the top and right spines, recolored and thickened the rest, shortened a spine with bounds, and centered the axes at the origin for a math-textbook look.

Practice quiz

Continue this course

• Previous: Vector Fields (quiver & streamplot)
• Next: Advanced Legends — Place legends outside the axes, use custom handles, and multiple legends
• Quick reference: Matplotlib cheat sheet

Frequently asked questions

What exactly is a spine in Matplotlib?

A spine is one of the four lines that form the border of the plotting area: 'top', 'bottom', 'left', and 'right'. They are stored in ax.spines, a dictionary keyed by those names, and each one is an artist you can hide, recolor, move, or shorten independently.

How do I remove the top and right borders for a cleaner chart?

Set their visibility to False: ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False) and ax.spines['right'].set_visible(False). This is the single most common spine tweak and instantly gives a chart a lighter, more modern look by removing the box around it.

How do I move the x and y axes so they cross at the origin?

Use set_position. Call ax.spines['left'].set_position('zero') and ax.spines['bottom'].set_position('zero') to move those spines to the data value 0, then hide the top and right spines. This creates the classic math-textbook look where the axes form a cross through (0, 0).

Can I shorten a spine so it does not span the whole axis?

Yes — call set_bounds(low, high) on the spine. For example ax.spines['left'].set_bounds(0, 5) draws the left spine only between y = 0 and y = 5, which is handy for emphasizing the range your data actually occupies.