matplotlib Legends Legend Placed Outside of Plot

Example

Sometimes it is necessary or desirable to place the legend outside the plot. The following code shows how to do it.

import matplotlib.pylab as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(10,6)) # make the figure with the size 10 x 6 inches
fig.suptitle('Example of a Legend Being Placed Outside of Plot')

# The data
x =  [1, 2, 3]
y1 = [1, 2, 4]
y2 = [2, 4, 8]
y3 = [3, 5, 14]

# Labels to use for each line
line_labels = ["Item A", "Item B", "Item C"]

# Create the lines, assigning different colors for each one.
# Also store the created line objects
l1 = ax.plot(x, y1, color="red")[0]
l2 = ax.plot(x, y2, color="green")[0]
l3 = ax.plot(x, y3, color="blue")[0]

fig.legend([l1, l2, l3],              # List of the line objects
           labels= line_labels,       # The labels for each line
           loc="center right",        # Position of the legend
           borderaxespad=0.1,         # Add little spacing around the legend box
           title="Legend Title")      # Title for the legend

# Adjust the scaling factor to fit your legend text completely outside the plot
# (smaller value results in more space being made for the legend)
plt.subplots_adjust(right=0.85)

plt.show()

---

Another way to place the legend outside the plot is to use bbox_to_anchor + bbox_extra_artists + bbox_inches='tight', as shown in the example below:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Data 
all_x = [10,20,30]
all_y = [[1,3], [1.5,2.9],[3,2]]

# Plot
fig = plt.figure(1)
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax.plot(all_x, all_y)

# Add legend, title and axis labels
lgd = ax.legend([ 'Lag ' + str(lag) for lag in all_x], loc='center right', bbox_to_anchor=(1.3, 0.5))
ax.set_title('Title')
ax.set_xlabel('x label')
ax.set_ylabel('y label')    

fig.savefig('image_output.png',
            dpi=300, 
            format='png', 
            bbox_extra_artists=(lgd,),
            bbox_inches='tight')