Wide vs Narrow Data: Which You Should Use and Why
Understanding the difference between wide and narrow (long) data formats is essential when plotting with Matplotlib, Seaborn, Plotly Express, and Pandas
Most data you come across in publications or on the web is in the human-friendly wide data format; tables in reports, spreadsheets and CSV files are mostly like this. But with plotting tools like Seaborn or Plotly Express and for certain Pandas operations, narrow-format data is more useful or even essential. Different tools need different data formats to work with.
To be able to use these data formats appropriately, we aim to answer the following questions:
What are narrow and wide data formats?
How to plot wide data with Matplotlib and Pandas plots
How to convert wide to narrow data with Pandas
melt()How to plot narrow data with Seaborn and Plotly Express