Search code examples
pythonseabornlegendjointplotjointgrid

How to move or remove the legend from a seaborn JointGrid or jointplot

How to remove the legend in the seaborn.JoingGrid plot?

The reference code is like below:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

penguins = sns.load_dataset("penguins")

g = sns.JointGrid(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", y="bill_depth_mm", hue="species")
g.plot_joint(sns.scatterplot)
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, x=g.hue, y=g.y, ax=g.ax_marg_y)
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, y=g.hue, x=g.x, ax=g.ax_marg_x)

plt.show()

enter image description here

I have tried to use the following methods that are known to work on the other seaborn plots, but failed on the jointplot:

plt.legend([],[], frameon=False)
g._legend.remove()
Solution
    • To remove the legend, the correct part of the sns.JointGrid must be accessed.
      • In this case g.ax_joint is where the legend is located.
    • As stated in a comment by mwaskom, Matplotlib axes have .legend (a method that creates a legend) and .legend_ (the resulting object). Don't access variables that start with an underscore (_legend), because it indicates they are private.
    • Tested in python 3.10, matplotlib 3.5.1, seaborn 0.11.2
      • g.plot_joint(sns.scatterplot, legend=False) may be used instead.

    sns.JointGrid

    import seaborn as sns

penguins = sns.load_dataset("penguins")

g = sns.JointGrid(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", y="bill_depth_mm", hue="species")
g.plot_joint(sns.scatterplot)  # legend=False can be added instead
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, x=g.hue, y=g.y, ax=g.ax_marg_y)
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, y=g.hue, x=g.x, ax=g.ax_marg_x)

# remove the legend from ax_joint
g.ax_joint.legend_.remove()

    enter image description here

    • Moving the JointGrid legend can be done with sns.move_legend, as shown in this answer.
      • This also requires using g.ax_joint.
    penguins = sns.load_dataset("penguins")

g = sns.JointGrid(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", y="bill_depth_mm", hue="species")
g.plot_joint(sns.scatterplot)
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, x=g.hue, y=g.y, ax=g.ax_marg_y)
sns.boxplot(data=penguins, y=g.hue, x=g.x, ax=g.ax_marg_x)

# move the legend in ax_joint
sns.move_legend(g.ax_joint, "lower right", title='Species', frameon=False)

    enter image description here

    With sns.jointplot

    • g.ax_joint.legend_.remove() can be used, but removing the legend is more easily accomplished by passing legend=False to the plot: sns.jointplot(..., legend=False).
    • g.ax_joint. is still required to move the legend.
    penguins = sns.load_dataset("penguins")
g = sns.jointplot(data=penguins, x="bill_length_mm", y="bill_depth_mm", hue="species")  # legend=False can be added instead

# remove the legend
g.ax_joint.legend_.remove()

# or 

# move the legend
# sns.move_legend(g.ax_joint, "lower right", title='Species', frameon=False)