# Why not call it a Plot instead of an Axis?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-not-call-it-a-plot-instead-of-an-axis/95557>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** makie\
**Created:** [March 4, 2023, 9:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-not-call-it-a-plot-instead-of-an-axis/95557 "2023-03-04T21:56:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jar1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@jar1](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jar1)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2023, 9:56pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-not-call-it-a-plot-instead-of-an-axis/95557/1 "2023-03-04T21:56:48Z")

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In Makie, a figure can have multiple plots. But for some reason each plot is called an “Axis” instead of a “Plot”. I normally think of a 2d plot having two axes – I don’t think of the whole plot being one axis. Is this a legacy of Matplotlib’s naming “an Axes”?

Why not just call it a Plot?

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**Author:** ![jules](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/41988e/32.png) [@jules](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jules)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-not-call-it-a-plot-instead-of-an-axis/95557/2 "2023-03-04T22:47:30Z")

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In Makie, a primitive object placed in a `Scene` is called a plot (`Lines`, `Scatter`, `Heatmap`, etc), , so an Axis can’t be the same thing. To be honest, plotting is full of very loosely defined terms. When you say `a figure can have multiple plots` you’re subscribing to one view what a “plot” is but that’s not necessarily the only one. It’s similar with Axis, we say there’s an x axis and a y axis, so one `Axis` has two axes 😉

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**Author:** ![DNF](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/dnf/32/10191_2.png) [@DNF](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DNF)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2023, 11:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-not-call-it-a-plot-instead-of-an-axis/95557/3 "2023-03-04T23:10:29Z")

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> [@jar1](#):
>
> But for some reason each plot is called an “Axis” instead of a “Plot”.

An Axis can have multiple plots inside it. You can put one or more line plots, scatter plots, bar plots, etc. inside an Axis object.

If this terminology was inherited from matplotlib, then it came from Matlab before that again. Not sure about the origin.