Matplotlib.dates.drange() in Python

Last Updated : 12 Jul, 2025

Matplotlib is an amazing visualization library in Python for 2D plots of arrays. Matplotlib is a multi-platform data visualization library built on NumPy arrays and designed to work with the broader SciPy stack.

matplotlib.dates.drange()

The matplotlib.dates.drange() function returns a sequence of equally spaced Matplotlib dates. The date range starts from 'dstart' and go up to, but not including 'dend'. The space between each date is called delta.

Syntax: matplotlib.dates.drange(dstart, dend, delta) Parameters:

dstart: Starting point of the date range and is a python's datetime date.
dend: Ending point of the date range and is a python's datetime date.
delta: It represents the spacing between each dates and belongs to python's datetime.timedelta.
Returns: It returns a numpy array which is a list of floats representing Matplotlib dates.

Example 1:

Python3 1==

import datetime
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.dates import DayLocator, HourLocator, DateFormatter, drange
import numpy as np


date_1 = datetime.datetime( 2020, 3, 2)
date_2 = datetime.datetime( 2020, 10, 10)

time_delta = datetime.timedelta(days = 28)
dates = drange(date_1, date_2, time_delta)

y_axis = np.arange( len(dates) )

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot_date(dates, y_axis * y_axis)

ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter( DateFormatter('% Y-% m') )

plt.show()

Output:

Example 2:

Python3 1==

import datetime
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.dates as mdates

date = [datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 24, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 23, 0, 0), 
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 22, 0, 0), 
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 21, 0, 0), 
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 18, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 17, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 16, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 15, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 14, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 11, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 10, 0, 0), 
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 9, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 8, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 7, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 4, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 3, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 2, 0, 0),
        datetime.datetime(2020, 8, 1, 0, 0)]

# is a datetime.datetime object 
# according to type
start_date = date[0]

# is a datetime.datetime object according 
# to type    
end_date = date[-1]
delta = datetime.timedelta(days = 5)

# the drange function
dates = mdates.drange(start_date, end_date, -delta)
y_data = range(len(dates))

plt.plot(dates, y_data)

Output:

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Matplotlib.dates.drange() in Python