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How to Rotate Tick Labels on Plotly Express Charts

Rotate tick labels in Plotly Express charts to keep axis values readable and avoid overlap.

TL;DR

Use fig.update_layout(xaxis_tickangle=...) or fig.update_layout(yaxis_tickangle=...) to rotate axis labels so long category names stay readable.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
fig = px.bar(df.head(10), x='country', y='gdpPercap')
fig.update_layout(xaxis_tickangle=45)
fig.show()

Plotly chart with rotated tick labels

Rotate x-axis tick labels

For long category names on the x-axis, xaxis_tickangle rotates the labels and prevents overlap.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
fig = px.bar(df.head(10), x='country', y='gdpPercap')
fig.update_layout(xaxis_tickangle=45)
fig.show()

Rotate y-axis tick labels

If your y-axis labels are long (for example, in a horizontal bar chart), use yaxis_tickangle.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
fig = px.bar(df.head(10), x='gdpPercap', y='country', orientation='h')
fig.update_layout(yaxis_tickangle=0)
fig.show()

Use tickangle in update_layout()

Plotly Express charts return a Figure object, so you can always call fig.update_layout() to rotate ticks after creating the chart.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
fig = px.line(df.query("country=='United States'"), x='year', y='lifeExp')
fig.update_layout(xaxis_tickangle=45)
fig.show()

Rotate and align labels together

For angled labels, use tickangle along with tickfont and automargin to keep them readable.

import plotly.express as px

df = px.data.gapminder().query("year == 2007")
fig = px.bar(df.head(10), x='country', y='gdpPercap')
fig.update_layout(
    xaxis_tickangle=45,
    xaxis_tickfont=dict(size=10),
    xaxis_tickmode='array',
    xaxis_tickvals=df.head(10)['country'],
    margin=dict(b=140),
)
fig.show()

Summary

  • Use xaxis_tickangle to rotate x-axis labels.
  • Use yaxis_tickangle for vertical or horizontal layouts.
  • Use fig.update_layout() after creating a Plotly Express figure.
  • Add margin or automargin when labels become long enough to need extra space.