.. _sphx_glr_gallery_misc_zorder_demo.py: =========== Zorder Demo =========== The default drawing order for axes is patches, lines, text. This order is determined by the zorder attribute. The following defaults are set ======================= ======= Artist Z-order ======================= ======= Patch / PatchCollection 1 Line2D / LineCollection 2 Text 3 ======================= ======= You can change the order for individual artists by setting the zorder. Any individual plot() call can set a value for the zorder of that particular item. In the fist subplot below, the lines are drawn above the patch collection from the scatter, which is the default. In the subplot below, the order is reversed. The second figure shows how to control the zorder of individual lines. .. code-block:: python import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np # Fixing random state for reproducibility np.random.seed(19680801) x = np.random.random(20) y = np.random.random(20) Lines on top of scatter .. code-block:: python plt.figure() plt.subplot(211) plt.plot(x, y, 'r', lw=3) plt.scatter(x, y, s=120) plt.title('Lines on top of dots') # Scatter plot on top of lines plt.subplot(212) plt.plot(x, y, 'r', zorder=1, lw=3) plt.scatter(x, y, s=120, zorder=2) plt.title('Dots on top of lines') .. image:: /gallery/misc/images/sphx_glr_zorder_demo_001.png :align: center A new figure, with individually ordered items .. code-block:: python x = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi, 100) plt.figure() plt.plot(x, np.sin(x), linewidth=10, color='black', label='zorder=10', zorder=10) # on top plt.plot(x, np.cos(1.3*x), linewidth=10, color='red', label='zorder=1', zorder=1) # bottom plt.plot(x, np.sin(2.1*x), linewidth=10, color='green', label='zorder=3', zorder=3) plt.axhline(0, linewidth=10, color='blue', label='zorder=2', zorder=2) plt.title('Custom order of elements') l = plt.legend() l.set_zorder(20) # put the legend on top plt.show() .. image:: /gallery/misc/images/sphx_glr_zorder_demo_002.png :align: center **Total running time of the script:** ( 0 minutes 0.144 seconds) .. only :: html .. container:: sphx-glr-footer .. container:: sphx-glr-download :download:`Download Python source code: zorder_demo.py ` .. container:: sphx-glr-download :download:`Download Jupyter notebook: zorder_demo.ipynb ` .. only:: html .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-signature `Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery `_