seaborn.ecdfplot

seaborn.ecdfplot(data=None, *, x=None, y=None, hue=None, weights=None, stat='proportion', complementary=False, palette=None, hue_order=None, hue_norm=None, log_scale=None, legend=True, ax=None, **kwargs)

Plot empirical cumulative distribution functions.

An ECDF represents the proportion or count of observations falling below each unique value in a dataset. Compared to a histogram or density plot, it has the advantage that each observation is visualized directly, meaning that there are no binning or smoothing parameters that need to be adjusted. It also aids direct comparisons between multiple distributions. A downside is that the relationship between the appearance of the plot and the basic properties of the distribution (such as its central tendency, variance, and the presence of any bimodality) may not be as intuitive.

More information is provided in the user guide.

Parameters:

datapandas.DataFrame, numpy.ndarray, mapping, or sequence

Input data structure. Either a long-form collection of vectors that can be assigned to named variables or a wide-form dataset that will be internally reshaped.

x, yvectors or keys in data

Variables that specify positions on the x and y axes.

huevector or key in data

Semantic variable that is mapped to determine the color of plot elements.

weightsvector or key in data

If provided, weight the contribution of the corresponding data points towards the cumulative distribution using these values.

stat{{“proportion”, “count”}}

Distribution statistic to compute.

complementarybool

If True, use the complementary CDF (1 - CDF)

palettestring, list, dict, or matplotlib.colors.Colormap

Method for choosing the colors to use when mapping the hue semantic. String values are passed to color_palette(). List or dict values imply categorical mapping, while a colormap object implies numeric mapping.

hue_ordervector of strings

Specify the order of processing and plotting for categorical levels of the hue semantic.

hue_normtuple or matplotlib.colors.Normalize

Either a pair of values that set the normalization range in data units or an object that will map from data units into a [0, 1] interval. Usage implies numeric mapping.

log_scalebool or number, or pair of bools or numbers

Set axis scale(s) to log. A single value sets the data axis for univariate distributions and both axes for bivariate distributions. A pair of values sets each axis independently. Numeric values are interpreted as the desired base (default 10). If False, defer to the existing Axes scale.

legendbool

If False, suppress the legend for semantic variables.

axmatplotlib.axes.Axes

Pre-existing axes for the plot. Otherwise, call matplotlib.pyplot.gca() internally.

kwargs

Other keyword arguments are passed to matplotlib.axes.Axes.plot().

Returns:

matplotlib.axes.Axes

The matplotlib axes containing the plot.

See also

displot

Figure-level interface to distribution plot functions.

histplot

Plot a histogram of binned counts with optional normalization or smoothing.

kdeplot

Plot univariate or bivariate distributions using kernel density estimation.

rugplot

Plot a tick at each observation value along the x and/or y axes.

Examples

Plot a univariate distribution along the x axis:

penguins = sns.load_dataset("penguins")
sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins, x="flipper_length_mm")

Flip the plot by assigning the data variable to the y axis:

sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins, y="flipper_length_mm")

If neither x nor y is assigned, the dataset is treated as wide-form, and a histogram is drawn for each numeric column:

sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins.filter(like="bill_", axis="columns"))

You can also draw multiple histograms from a long-form dataset with hue mapping:

sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", hue="species")

The default distribution statistic is normalized to show a proportion, but you can show absolute counts instead:

sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", hue="species", stat="count")

It’s also possible to plot the empirical complementary CDF (1 - CDF):

sns.ecdfplot(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", hue="species", complementary=True)