Show tick labels when sharing an axis in Matplotlib

When creating subplots that share an axis in Matplotlib, you might want to show tick labels on all subplots instead of hiding them on shared axes. By default, Matplotlib hides tick labels on shared axes to avoid redundancy, but you can control this behavior.

Default Behavior with Shared Y-Axis

When using sharey parameter, Matplotlib automatically hides y-axis tick labels on the right subplot to avoid duplication ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [10, 4]
plt.rcParams["figure.autolayout"] = True

# Create first subplot
ax1 = plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
ax1.plot([1, 4, 9])
ax1.set_title('Left Plot')

# Create second subplot sharing y-axis
ax2 = plt.subplot(1, 2, 2, sharey=ax1)
ax2.plot([1, 8, 27])
ax2.set_title('Right Plot (shared y-axis)')

plt.show()

Showing Tick Labels on Shared Axis

To show tick labels on both subplots when sharing an axis, use tick_params() method with labelleft=True or labelright=True ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [10, 4]
plt.rcParams["figure.autolayout"] = True

# Create subplots with shared y-axis
ax1 = plt.subplot(1, 2, 1)
ax1.plot([1, 4, 9], 'b-', label='Subplot 1')
ax1.set_title('Left Plot')

ax2 = plt.subplot(1, 2, 2, sharey=ax1)
ax2.plot([1, 8, 27], 'r-', label='Subplot 2')
ax2.set_title('Right Plot')

# Show tick labels on the right subplot
ax2.tick_params(axis='y', labelleft=True)

plt.show()

Alternative Method Using setp()

You can also use setp() to make tick labels visible ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(1, 2, figsize=(10, 4), sharey=True)

# Plot data on both axes
ax1.plot([1, 4, 9, 16], 'bo-')
ax1.set_title('Squares')

ax2.plot([1, 8, 27, 64], 'ro-')
ax2.set_title('Cubes')

# Make y-axis labels visible on right subplot
plt.setp(ax2.get_yticklabels(), visible=True)

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Controlling X-Axis Labels

Similar control applies to x-axis when using sharex parameter ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(2, 1, figsize=(8, 6), sharex=True)

x = np.linspace(0, 10, 50)

# Plot on both subplots
ax1.plot(x, np.sin(x))
ax1.set_title('Sine Wave')

ax2.plot(x, np.cos(x))
ax2.set_title('Cosine Wave')

# Show x-axis labels on top subplot
ax1.tick_params(axis='x', labelbottom=True)

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Summary

Conclusion

Use tick_params() with appropriate label parameters to show tick labels on shared axes. This gives you full control over which subplots display tick labels while maintaining axis synchronization.