The Stata Journal

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The Stata Journal (2010)
10, Number 4, pp. 689–690

Stata tip 93: Handling multiple y axes on twoway graphs

Vince Wiggins
StataCorp
College Station, TX
vwiggins@stata.com

Sometimes users find it difficult to handle multiple y axes on their twoway graphs.
The main issue is controlling the side of the graph—left or right—where each axis is
placed.
Here is a contrived example that exhibits the issue:
. sysuse auto
(1978 Automobile Data)
. collapse (mean) mpg trunk, by(length foreign)
. twoway bar mpg length, yaxis(2) ||
line trunk length, yaxis(1)
35

25
30

20
(mean) trunk
(mean) mpg
25

15
20

10
15
10

140 160 180 200 220 240

Length (in.)

(mean) mpg (mean) trunk

We might want yaxis(1) to be on the left of the graph and yaxis(2) to be on the
right of the graph, but twoway insists on putting yaxis(2) on the left and yaxis(1)
on the right. We could achieve what we want by reversing the order of the two plots,
but the bars then occlude the lines, and who wants that?
It might be surprising, but the number assigned to an axis has nothing to do with
its placement on the graph. twoway places the axes in the order in which it encounters
them, with no consideration of their assigned number. How authoritarian! Consider
twoway’s problem: when it sees yaxis(2), it cannot be sure that it will ever see a
yaxis(1). Moreover, twoway will let you create more than two y axes, and in that case
it just stacks them up on the left of the graph like cordwood.

c 2010 StataCorp LP
gr0047
690 Stata tip 93

Do not worry. Although we may not like twoway’s rules, we can alter them. If we
want any axes to appear in a different position, we just tell twoway to move them to
the alternate (other) side of the graph using the yscale(alt) option. In this example,
if we do not like the position of either y axis, we will need to tell each of them to switch
to the other side.

. twoway bar mpg length, yaxis(2) ||

line trunk length, yaxis(1) yscale(alt) yscale(alt axis(2))
25

35
30
20
(mean) trunk

(mean) mpg
25
15

20
10

15
10
5

140 160 180 200 220 240

Length (in.)

(mean) mpg (mean) trunk

We typed just yscale(alt) rather than the more explicit (but still valid) yscale(alt
axis(1)) because axis(1) is the default whenever we do not specify an axis. To alter
the side where axis(2) appears, we had to be explicit about the axis number and type
yscale(alt axis(2)).
If your axis is not where you want it, tell it to alter itself.1

1 Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Stata Journal editor Nicholas Cox for the initial adaptation of
this tip from a Statalist posting, though Nick bears no responsibility for any remaining
errors or puns.

1. The Stata Journal editors, against much stiff opposition, declare this to be the worst pun so far in
the history of the Stata Journal.