Pandas: Create Histogram for Each Column in DataFrame

You can use the following basic syntax to create a histogram for each column in a pandas DataFrame:

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#define number of subplots
fig, axis = plt.subplots(1, 3)

#create histogram for each column in DataFrame
df.hist(ax=axis)

This particular example uses the subplots() function to specify that there are 3 columns in the DataFrame and then creates a histogram for each column.

The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.

Example: Create Histogram for Each Column in Pandas Histogram

Suppose we have the following pandas DataFrame that contains three columns:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np

#make this example reproducible
np.random.seed(1)

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'points': np.random.normal(loc=20, scale=2, size=300),
                   'assists': np.random.normal(loc=14, scale=3, size=300),
                   'rebounds': np.random.normal(loc=12, scale=1, size=300)})

#view head of DataFrame
print(df.head())

      points    assists   rebounds
0  23.248691  20.197350  10.927036
1  18.776487   9.586529  12.495159
2  18.943656  11.509484  11.047938
3  17.854063  11.358267  11.481854
4  21.730815  13.162707  10.538596

We can use the following syntax to create a histogram for each of the three columns in the DataFrame:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt 

#define format for subplots (1 row and 3 columns)
fig, axis = plt.subplots(1, 3)

#create histogram for each column in DataFrame
df.hist(ax=axis)

The result is a grid with one row and three columns that displays a histogram for each column in the DataFrame.

If you’d like, you can use the figsize argument to modify the size of the histograms along with the edgecolor and grid arguments to make the histograms look better:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt 

#define format for subplots
fig, axis = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(8,3))

#create histogram for each column in DataFrame
df.hist(ax=axis, edgecolor='black', grid=False)

pandas create histogram for each column in DataFrame