How to Plot Two Columns from Pandas DataFrame

There are two common ways to plot the values from two columns in a pandas DataFrame:

Method 1: Plot Two Columns as Points on Scatter Plot

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.scatter(df['column1'], df['column2'])

Method 2: Plot Two Columns as Lines on Line Chart

df.plot(x='column1', y=['column2', 'column3'])

The following examples show how to use each method in practice.

Example 1: Plot Two Columns on Scatter Plot

Suppose we have the following pandas DataFrame that contains information about various basketball players:

import pandas as pd

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'team': ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H'],
                   'points': [18, 22, 19, 14, 14, 11, 20, 28],
                   'assists': [5, 7, 7, 9, 12, 9, 9, 4]})

#view DataFrame
print(df)

  team  points  assists
0    A      18        5
1    B      22        7
2    C      19        7
3    D      14        9
4    E      14       12
5    F      11        9
6    G      20        9
7    H      28        4

We can use the following code to create a scatter plot that displays the points column on the x-axis and the assists column on the y-axis:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

#create scatter plot
plt.scatter(df['points'], df['assists'])

#add axis labels
plt.xlabel('Points')
plt.ylabel('Assists')

pandas plot two columns on scatter plot

The x-axis contains the values from the points column and the y-axis contains the values from the assists column.

Example 2: Plot Two Columns on Line Chart

Suppose we have the following pandas DataFrame that contains information about points scored and points allowed by a basketball team in six different games:

import pandas as pd

#create DataFrame
df = pd.DataFrame({'game': [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
                   'points_for': [99, 94, 92, 90, 87, 85],
                   'points_against': [89, 76, 78, 78, 85, 87]})

#view DataFrame
print(df)

   game  points_for  points_against
0     1          99              89
1     2          94              76
2     3          92              78
3     4          90              78
4     5          87              85
5     6          85              87

We can use the following code to create a line chart that displays the values for point_for on one line and points_against on another line while using the value for game on the x-axis:

#plot points_for and points_against columns on same y-axis
df.plot(x='game', y=['points_for', 'points_against'])

The blue line represents the value for the points_for column in each game and the orange line represents the values for the points_against column in each game.