import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

mu, sigma = 100, 15
x = mu + sigma * np.random.randn(10000)
hist, bins = np.histogram(x, bins=50)
width = 0.7 * (bins[1] - bins[0])
center = (bins[:-1] + bins[1:]) / 2
plt.bar(center, hist, align='center', width=width)
plt.show()

enter image description here

The object-oriented interface is also straightforward:

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.bar(center, hist, align='center', width=width)
fig.savefig("1.png")

If you are using custom (non-constant) bins, you can pass compute the widths using np.diff, pass the widths to ax.bar and use ax.set_xticks to label the bin edges:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

mu, sigma = 100, 15
x = mu + sigma * np.random.randn(10000)
bins = [0, 40, 60, 75, 90, 110, 125, 140, 160, 200]
hist, bins = np.histogram(x, bins=bins)
width = np.diff(bins)
center = (bins[:-1] + bins[1:]) / 2

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(8,3))
ax.bar(center, hist, align='center', width=width)
ax.set_xticks(bins)
fig.savefig("/tmp/out.png")

plt.show()

enter image description here


If you don't want bars you can plot it like this:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

mu, sigma = 100, 15
x = mu + sigma * np.random.randn(10000)

bins, edges = np.histogram(x, 50, normed=1)
left,right = edges[:-1],edges[1:]
X = np.array([left,right]).T.flatten()
Y = np.array([bins,bins]).T.flatten()

plt.plot(X,Y)
plt.show()

histogram