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Doc: Clarify default levels behavior in contour/contourf #31016

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timhoffm merged 9 commits into from
Feb 2, 2026
Merged

Doc: Clarify default levels behavior in contour/contourf #31016

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44c1dd4
Doc: Clarify default levels behavior in contour/contourf
sanrishi Jan 22, 2026
e64f5eb
Precommit fix
sanrishi Jan 22, 2026
d81ca52
Update contour.py
sanrishi Jan 27, 2026
397629e
Update contour.py
sanrishi Jan 27, 2026
787c773
Update contour.py
sanrishi Jan 27, 2026
1cd6255
DOC: Clarify contour levels parameter as boundaries to fix ambiguity
sanrishi Feb 1, 2026
d528659
Update contour.py
sanrishi Feb 1, 2026
80fc2de
Update contour.py
sanrishi Feb 1, 2026
5ff02f0
Update lib/matplotlib/contour.py
sanrishi Feb 2, 2026
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12 changes: 9 additions & 3 deletions lib/matplotlib/contour.py
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Expand Up @@ -1486,13 +1486,19 @@ def _initialize_x_y(self, z):
levels : int or array-like, optional
Determines the number and positions of the contour lines / regions.

If an int *n*, use `~matplotlib.ticker.MaxNLocator`, which tries
to automatically choose no more than *n+1* "nice" contour levels
between minimum and maximum numeric values of *Z*.
If an int *n*, use `~matplotlib.ticker.MaxNLocator`, which tries to
automatically choose no more than *n+2* "nice" contour level boundaries
between the minimum and maximum numeric values of *Z*. These boundaries
define where lines are drawn (for `contour`) or where filled regions
are separated (for `contourf`).

If array-like, draw contour lines at the specified levels.
The values must be in increasing order.

If not specified, a reasonable default is automatically chosen. For
linear scales, this corresponds to *levels=7*. For logarithmic
scales, `~matplotlib.ticker.LogLocator` is used instead.

Returns
-------
`~.contour.QuadContourSet`
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