Note
Click here to download the full example code
Coastlines and borders¶
Plotting coastlines and borders is handled by pygmt.Figure.coast
.
import pygmt
Shorelines¶
Use the shorelines
parameter to plot only the shorelines:
fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.basemap(region="g", projection="W15c", frame=True)
fig.coast(shorelines=True)
fig.show()

Out:
<IPython.core.display.Image object>
The shorelines are divided in 4 levels:
coastline
lakeshore
island-in-lake shore
lake-in-island-in-lake shore
You can specify which level you want to plot by passing the level number and a GMT pen configuration. For example, to plot just the coastlines with 0.5 thickness and black lines:
fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.basemap(region="g", projection="W15c", frame=True)
fig.coast(shorelines="1/0.5p,black")
fig.show()

Out:
<IPython.core.display.Image object>
You can specify multiple levels (with their own pens) by passing a list to
shorelines
:
fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.basemap(region="g", projection="W15c", frame=True)
fig.coast(shorelines=["1/1p,black", "2/0.5p,red"])
fig.show()

Out:
<IPython.core.display.Image object>
Resolutions¶
The coastline database comes with 5 resolutions. The resolution drops by 80% between levels:
"c"
: crude"l"
: low (default)"i"
: intermediate"h"
: high"f"
: full
oahu = [-158.3, -157.6, 21.2, 21.8]
fig = pygmt.Figure()
for res in ["c", "l", "i", "h", "f"]:
fig.coast(resolution=res, shorelines="1p", region=oahu, projection="M5c")
fig.shift_origin(xshift="5c")
fig.show()

Out:
<IPython.core.display.Image object>
Land and water¶
Use the land
and water
parameters to specify a fill color for land and water
bodies. The colors can be given by name or hex codes (like the ones used in HTML and
CSS):
fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.basemap(region="g", projection="W15c", frame=True)
fig.coast(land="#666666", water="skyblue")
fig.show()

Out:
<IPython.core.display.Image object>
Total running time of the script: ( 0 minutes 7.653 seconds)