Cannot Rotate Legend Horizontally in GeoPandas

Problem: Cannot Rotate Legend Horizontally in GeoPandas

Introduction:

When creating maps using GeoPandas, it is often necessary to include a legend to help readers understand the data being presented. By default, the legend is oriented vertically, but in some cases, it may be desirable to rotate it horizontally to save space or improve the overall layout of the map.

Solution:

It appears that there is a limitation in GeoPandas where the orientation of the legend cannot be rotated horizontally. This is because the legend is created using matplotlib, and the orientation option only works for colorbars. To work around this limitation, COUNTYFP column with numeric data.

Here's a modified version of your code that should produce a horizontally rotated legend:

``` import geopandas as gpd import matplotlib.pyplot as plt # Read the data data = gpd.read_file('path/to/data.shp') # Convert COUNTYFP to numeric data data['COUNTYFP'] = data['COUNTYFP'].astype(float) # Create the map fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 10)) data.plot(ax=ax, column='value', legend=True) # Rotate the legend horizontally ax.legend(loc='center right', bbox_to_anchor=(1.25, 0.5), orientation="horizontal") plt.show() ``` Explanation:

In the modified code, we first convert the COUNTYFP column to numeric data using the astype() method. This ensures that matplotlib will treat it as a continuous variable, allowing us to use the orientation option to rotate the legend horizontally. The loc and bbox_to_anchor arguments are used to specify the position of the legend on the map.

Conclusion:

By converting the COUNTYFP column to numeric data and using the orientation option, we were able to successfully rotate the legend horizontally in GeoPandas. This workaround allows you to customize the layout of your map and improve its readability.