Fix Python – How can I make a blank subplot in matplotlib?

Question 1

I am making a group of subplot (say, 3 x 2) in matplotlib, but I have fewer than 6 datasets. How can I make the remaining subplot blank?

The arrangement looks like this:

+----+----+
| 0,0| 0,1|
+----+----+
| 1,0| 1,1|
+----+----+
| 2,0| 2,1|
+----+----+

This may go on for several pages, but on the final page, there are, for example, 5 datasets to the 2,1 box will be empty. However, I have declared the figure as:

cfig,ax = plt.subplots(3,2)

So in the space for subplot 2,1 there is a default set of axes with ticks and labels. How can I programatically render that space blank and devoid of axes?

Question 2

You could always hide the axes which you do not need. For example, the following code turns off the 6th axes completely:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

hf, ha = plt.subplots(3,2)
ha[-1, -1].axis('off')

plt.show()

and results in the following figure:

An image of a 3x2 grid of graphs, with no graph rendered in the bottom right cell

Alternatively, see the accepted answer to the question Hiding axis text in matplotlib plots for a way of keeping the axes but hiding all the axes decorations (e.g. the tick marks and labels).

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