Pandas Plot Multiple Columns on Bar Chart with Matplotlib

1. Plot bar chart of multiple columns for each observation in the single bar chart
2. Stack bar chart of multiple columns for each observation in the single bar chart

In this tutorial, we will introduce how we can plot multiple columns on a bar chart using the plot() method of the DataFrame object.

import pandas as pd 

data=[["Rudra",23,156,70],
      ["Nayan",20,136,60],
      ["Alok",15,100,35],
      ["Prince",30,150,85]
     ]

df=pd.DataFrame(data,columns=["Name","Age","Height(cm)","Weight(kg)"])
print(df)

Output:

     Name  Age  Height(cm)  Weight(kg)
0   Rudra   23         156          70
1   Nayan   20         136          60
2    Alok   15         100          35
3  Prince   30         150          85

We will use the DataFrame df to construct bar plots. We need to plot age, height, and weight for each person in the DataFrame on a single bar chart.

Plot bar chart of multiple columns for each observation in the single bar chart

import pandas as pd 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt 

data=[["Rudra",23,156,70],
      ["Nayan",20,136,60],
      ["Alok",15,100,35],
      ["Prince",30,150,85]
     ]

df=pd.DataFrame(data,columns=["Name","Age","Height(cm)","Weight(kg)"])
df.plot(x="Name", y=["Age", "Height(cm)", "Weight(kg)"], kind="bar",figsize=(9,8))
plt.show()

Output:

It generates a bar chart for Age, Height and Weight for each person in the dataframe df using the plot() method for the df object. We pass a list of all the columns to be plotted in the bar chart as y parameter in the method, and kind="bar" will produce a bar chart for the df. The x parameter will be varied along the X-axis.

Stack bar chart of multiple columns for each observation in the single bar chart

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

employees=["Rudra","Alok","Prince","Nayan","Reman"]
earnings={
    "January":[10,20,15,18,14],
    "February":[20,13,10,18,15],
    "March":[20,20,10,15,18],
}

df=pd.DataFrame(earnings,index=employees)

df.plot(kind="bar",stacked=True,figsize=(10,8))
plt.legend(loc="lower left",bbox_to_anchor=(0.8,1.0))
plt.show()

Output:

It displays the bar chart by stacking one column’s value over the other for each index in the DataFrame.