What Is a Histogram in Matplotlib?

A histogram is a chart used to show the distribution of numerical data.
Instead of comparing categories like a bar chart, a histogram groups numbers into intervals called bins and displays how many values fall into each bin.

Histograms are widely used in statistics, data science, and analytics to understand data patterns such as spread, skewness, and frequency.

Basic Histogram Example

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data = [1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6] plt.hist(data) plt.show() # Output: # Histogram showing frequency distribution

Changing Number of Bins

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data = [1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6] plt.hist(data, bins=5) plt.show() # Output: # Histogram with 5 bins

  • More bins → detailed view

  • Fewer bins → broader grouping

Changing Color

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data = [1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6] plt.hist(data, color="green") plt.show() # Output: # Green colored histogram bars

Adding Border to Bars

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data = [1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6] plt.hist(data, edgecolor="black") plt.show() # Output: # Histogram with black borders

Setting Data Range

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data = [1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,5,5,5,6] plt.hist(data, range=(1, 6)) plt.show() # Output: # Histogram limited to selected range

Multiple Histograms Together

Python 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt data1 = [1,2,3,4,5] data2 = [2,3,4,5,6] plt.hist(data1, alpha=0.5) plt.hist(data2, alpha=0.5) plt.show() # Output: # Two overlapping histograms

alpha controls transparency.