Frames, ticks, titles, and labels

Setting the style of the map frames, ticks, etc, is handled by the frame argument that all plotting methods of pygmt.Figure.

import pygmt

Plot frame

By default, PyGMT does not add a frame to your plot. For example, we can plot the coastlines of the world with a Mercator projection:

fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.coast(shorelines="1/0.5p", region=[-180, 180, -60, 60], projection="M10i")
fig.show()

Out:

Debugging:
inline_display: False
disable_external_display: True

To add the default GMT frame to the plot, use frame="f" in pygmt.Figure.basemap or any other plotting module:

fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.coast(shorelines="1/0.5p", region=[-180, 180, -60, 60], projection="M10i")
fig.basemap(frame="f")
fig.show()

Out:

Debugging:
inline_display: False
disable_external_display: True

Ticks and grid lines

The automatic frame (frame=True or frame="a") sets the default GMT style frame and automatically determines tick labels from the plot region.

fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.coast(shorelines="1/0.5p", region=[-180, 180, -60, 60], projection="M10i")
fig.basemap(frame="a")
fig.show()

Out:

Debugging:
inline_display: False
disable_external_display: True

Add automatic grid lines to the plot by adding a g to frame:

fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.coast(shorelines="1/0.5p", region=[-180, 180, -60, 60], projection="M10i")
fig.basemap(frame="ag")
fig.show()

Out:

Debugging:
inline_display: False
disable_external_display: True