Create a bar chart in python grouping the x axis by 2 variables

Question

I need to create a bar chart using python, where I can group the X axis by 2 variables. The data I need to graph is the following

Country	City	Number of Universities
Germany	Berlin	30
Germany	Munich	20
Germany	Hamburg	10
France	Paris	40
France	Marseille	5
France	Lyon	10
France	Nice	5
Spain	Madrid	25
Spain	Barcelona	15
Spain	Valencia	10
Spain	Seville	7
Denmark	Copenhagen	10
Denmark	Aarhus	5
Italy	Rome	20
Italy	Milan	15
Italy	Naples	8
Italy	Florence	7
Austria	Vienna	12
Austria	Salzburg	4

I share the code to create it below:

import pandas as pd

# Create a dictionary with the data
data = {
    'Country': ['Germany', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'France', 'France', 'France', 'France',
                'Spain', 'Spain', 'Spain', 'Spain', 'Denmark', 'Denmark', 'Italy',
                'Italy', 'Italy', 'Italy', 'Austria', 'Austria'],
    'City': ['Berlin', 'Munich', 'Hamburg', 'Paris', 'Marseille', 'Lyon', 'Nice',
             'Madrid', 'Barcelona', 'Valencia', 'Seville', 'Copenhagen', 'Aarhus',
             'Rome', 'Milan', 'Naples', 'Florence', 'Vienna', 'Salzburg']
}

# Convert the dictionary into a pandas DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame(data)

# Count the number of universities per city and add it as a new column
universities_count = [30, 20, 10, 40, 5, 10, 5, 25, 15, 10, 7, 10, 5, 20, 15, 8, 7, 12, 4]
df['Number of Universities'] = universities_count

# Show the DataFrame
print(df)

The objective is to generate the following graph:

in advance, thank you very much for your help

Answer 1

Depending on how closely you want to replicate this, you'll need an approach that can calculate the necessary height/placement of your group labels and tick lines.

I wrote a helper function to do this that calculates the current height (in points) of the xaxis of an inputted Axes.

After that, we effectively need 3 sets of Axes.xaxis to work with:

1. For the individual 'City' level ticks
2. For the grouped 'Country' level ticks
3. For the lines that span from the Axes down to the bottom of the 'Country' level labels.

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

df = pd.DataFrame({
    'Country': [
        'Germany', 'Germany', 'Germany', 'France', 'France', 'France', 'France',
        'Spain', 'Spain', 'Spain', 'Spain', 'Denmark', 'Denmark', 'Italy',
        'Italy', 'Italy', 'Italy', 'Austria', 'Austria'
    ],
    'City': [
        'Berlin', 'Munich', 'Hamburg', 'Paris', 'Marseille', 'Lyon', 'Nice',
         'Madrid', 'Barcelona', 'Valencia', 'Seville', 'Copenhagen', 'Aarhus',
         'Rome', 'Milan', 'Naples', 'Florence', 'Vienna', 'Salzburg'
    ],
    'Number of Universities': [
        30, 20, 10, 40, 5, 10, 5, 25, 15, 10, 7, 10, 5, 20, 15, 8, 7, 12, 4
    ]
})

plot_df = df.sort_values(['Country', 'City'])

###

def get_xaxis_height(ax):
    height = 0
    axes = [ax] + ax.child_axes
    for ax in axes:
        height += ax.xaxis.get_tightbbox().height
        height += ax.xaxis.get_tick_params()['pad']
    return height * 72 / fig.dpi

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.rc('font', size=12)

## Create base chart
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12, 8))
ax.spines[['left', 'top', 'right']].set_visible(False) # turn off all spines

bc = ax.bar('City', 'Number of Universities', data=plot_df, width=.6)
ax.bar_label(bc)
ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(
    rotation=90,
    bottom=False,
    length=0,
    pad=1,   # adjust pad to move individual labels further/closer to bottom spine
)
ax.yaxis.set_tick_params(left=False)

## Add group labels underneath existing rotated labels
label_locs = (
    plot_df.assign(tick_loc=np.arange(len(plot_df)))
    .groupby('Country')['tick_loc']
    .mean()
)
ax_bottom = get_xaxis_height(ax)
group_label_ax = ax.secondary_xaxis(location='bottom')
group_label_ax.set_xticks(label_locs, labels=label_locs.index, ha='center')
group_label_ax.tick_params(
    bottom=False,
    pad=10,  # adjust pad to move your group labels further/closer to the individual labels
    length=ax_bottom
)

## add long tick lines where needed
line_locs = (
    plot_df.assign(tick_loc=np.arange(len(plot_df)))
    .loc[lambda d:
        d['Country'] != d['Country'].shift(), 'tick_loc'
    ]
    - 0.5
).tolist()
line_locs += [len(df) - .5]

ax_bottom = get_xaxis_height(ax)
tickline_ax = ax.secondary_xaxis(location='bottom')
tickline_ax.set_xticks(line_locs)
tickline_ax.tick_params(labelbottom=False, length=ax_bottom, pad=0)
ax.set_xlim(-.5, len(ax.containers[0]) - .5)

## adjust spine & tick colors
ax.spines['bottom'].set_color('gainsboro')
tickline_ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(
    color='gainsboro', 
    labelcolor='black', 
    width=ax.spines['bottom'].get_linewidth() * 2
)

## adjust y-ticks to be multiples of 5
from matplotlib.ticker import MultipleLocator
ax.yaxis.set_major_locator(MultipleLocator(5))
ax.margins(y=.2)

fig.tight_layout()
plt.show()