[python] How can I remove the top and right axis in matplotlib?

Instead of the default "boxed" axis style I want to have only the left and bottom axis, i.e.:

+------+         |
|      |         |
|      |   --->  |
|      |         |
+------+         +-------

This should be easy, but I can't find the necessary options in the docs.

If you don't need ticks and such (e.g. for plotting qualitative illustrations) you could also use this quick workaround:

Make the axis invisible (e.g. with plt.gca().axison = False) and then draw them manually with plt.arrow.

Alternatively, this

def simpleaxis(ax):
    ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)
    ax.spines['right'].set_visible(False)
    ax.get_xaxis().tick_bottom()
    ax.get_yaxis().tick_left()

seems to achieve the same effect on an axis without losing rotated label support.

(Matplotlib 1.0.1; solution inspired by this).

_{(This is more of an extension comment, in addition to the comprehensive answers here.)}

Note that we can hide each of these three elements independently of each other:

• To hide the border (aka "spine"): ax.set_frame_on(False) or ax.spines['top'].set_visible(False)

• To hide the ticks: ax.tick_params(top=False)

• To hide the labels: ax.tick_params(labeltop=False)

[edit] matplotlib in now (2013-10) on version 1.3.0 which includes this

That ability was actually just added, and you need the Subversion version for it. You can see the example code here.

I am just updating to say that there's a better example online now. Still need the Subversion version though, there hasn't been a release with this yet.

[edit] Matplotlib 0.99.0 RC1 was just released, and includes this capability.

If you need to remove it from all your plots, you can remove spines in style settings (style sheet or rcParams). E.g:

import matplotlib as mpl

mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.right'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.top'] = False

If you want to remove all spines:

mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.left'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.right'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.top'] = False
mpl.rcParams['axes.spines.bottom'] = False

Library Seaborn has this built in with function .despine().

Just add:

import seaborn as sns

Now create your graph. And add at the end:

sns.despine()

If you look at some of the default parameter values of the function it removes the top and right spine and keeps the bottom and left spine:

sns.despine(top=True, right=True, left=False, bottom=False)

Check out further documentation here: https://seaborn.pydata.org/generated/seaborn.despine.html