How to do a barplot with Matplotlib
• 1 minBarplots are one of the most widely used plots in data visualization.
They can be used to compare the evolution of multiple variables over time.
Here is a simple example of a barplot, using the matplotlib library.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import pandas as pd
# We generate a dataframe with some random data
df = pd.DataFrame(index = ['2018', '2019', '2020', '2021'],
data={"sales": [28429, 41771, 55238, 120681]})
# We set our canvas
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1,1, figsize=(8,6))
# We do a bar plot on the axes
axes.bar(x=df.index,
height=df["sales"],
label="Sales in USD")
# We set a title
axes.set_title("Sales per year")
# Change the labels
axes.set_xlabel("Year")
axes.set_ylabel("In USD")
# Add the legend
axes.legend(loc='upper left')
# Fixing the layout to fit the size
fig.tight_layout()
# Showing the plot
plt.show()
As we can see we are using the axes.bar() method that will do a barplot given a index list and a list of heights.
In this example, we are plotting the amount of sales versus the year column.
Here is the result.

Here you are ! You now know how to do a barplot in Python using Matplotlib library !
More on plots
If you want to know more about how to add labels, plot different types of plots, etc... checkout the other articles I wrote on the topic, just here :
Matplotlib - The Python You Need
We gathered the only Python essentials that you will probably ever need.