What names can be used in plt.cm.get_cmap?

Matplotlib provides numerous built-in colormaps through plt.cm.get_cmap(), and additional colormaps can be registered using matplotlib.cm.register_cmap. You can retrieve a list of all available colormap names to use with get_cmap().

Getting All Available Colormap Names

Use plt.colormaps() to retrieve all registered colormap names ?

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt

cmaps = plt.colormaps()

print("Available colormap names:")
print(f"Total colormaps: {len(cmaps)}")

# Show first 10 colormaps
for i, name in enumerate(cmaps[:10]):
    print(f"{i+1}. {name}")

print("...")
print(f"And {len(cmaps)-10} more colormaps")

Available colormap names:
Total colormaps: 170
1. Accent
2. Accent_r
3. Blues
4. Blues_r
5. BrBG
6. BrBG_r
7. BuGn
8. BuGn_r
9. BuPu
10. BuPu_r
...
And 160 more colormaps

Using Colormap Names with get_cmap()

Once you have the colormap names, use them with plt.cm.get_cmap() ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

# Create sample data
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x)

# Use different colormaps
fig, axes = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(12, 4))

# Using different colormap names
colormaps = ['viridis', 'plasma', 'coolwarm']
for i, cmap_name in enumerate(colormaps):
    cmap = plt.cm.get_cmap(cmap_name)
    axes[i].scatter(x, y, c=y, cmap=cmap)
    axes[i].set_title(f'Colormap: {cmap_name}')

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Popular Colormap Categories

Matplotlib colormaps are organized into several categories ?

Filtering Colormap Names

You can filter colormaps by category or pattern ?

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Get all colormap names
all_cmaps = plt.colormaps()

# Filter sequential colormaps (ending with 's' often indicates sequential)
sequential = [name for name in all_cmaps if name in ['viridis', 'plasma', 'inferno', 'magma', 'Blues', 'Reds', 'Greens']]

# Filter reversed colormaps (ending with '_r')
reversed_cmaps = [name for name in all_cmaps if name.endswith('_r')]

print("Popular sequential colormaps:")
for cmap in sequential:
    print(f"  {cmap}")

print(f"\nReversed colormaps available: {len(reversed_cmaps)}")
print("Examples:", reversed_cmaps[:5])

Popular sequential colormaps:
  viridis
  plasma
  inferno
  magma
  Blues
  Reds
  Greens

Reversed colormaps available: 85
Examples: ['Accent_r', 'Blues_r', 'BrBG_r', 'BuGn_r', 'BuPu_r']

Conclusion

Use plt.colormaps() to get all available colormap names for plt.cm.get_cmap(). Matplotlib provides over 170 built-in colormaps across sequential, diverging, qualitative, and cyclic categories. Choose colormaps based on your data type and visualization needs.