---
id: contourpy
version: "1.3.3"
license: BSD 3-Clause License Copyright (c) 2021-2025, ContourPy Developers. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that… (full text in the JSON record)
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# contourpy — Python library for calculating contours of 2D quadrilateral grids

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Popularity: top 1,000 on PyPI

## Install

pip install contourpy
uv add contourpy
poetry add contourpy

## Description

<img alt="ContourPy" src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/contourpy/contourpy/main/docs/_static/contourpy_logo_horiz.svg" height="90">

ContourPy is a Python library for calculating contours of 2D quadrilateral grids.  It is written in C++11 and wrapped using pybind11.

It contains the 2005 and 2014 algorithms used in Matplotlib as well as a newer algorithm that includes more features and is available in both serial and multithreaded versions.  It provides an easy way for Python libraries to use contouring algorithms without having to include Matplotlib as a dependency.

  * **Documentation**: https://contourpy.readthedocs.io
  * **Source code**: https://github.com/contourpy/contourpy

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| Latest release | [![PyPI version](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/contourpy.svg?label=pypi&color=fdae61)](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/contourpy) [![conda-forge version](https://img.shields.io/conda/v/conda-forge/contourpy.svg?label=conda-forge&color=a6d96a)](https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/contourpy) |
| Downloads | [![PyPi downloads](https://img.shields.io/pypi/dm/contourpy?label=pypi&style=flat&color=fdae61)](https://pepy.tech/project/contourpy) |
| Python version |...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

ContourPy calculates contours of 2D quadrilateral grids using C++11-accelerated algorithms, offering serial and multithreaded variants as a lightweight alternative to embedding Matplotlib for contouring tasks.

Verdict: Production-ready, actively maintained library with no known vulnerabilities and permissive licensing. Medium install friction is offset by broad wheel coverage and a single, lightweight runtime dependency (numpy). Suitable for scientific and visualization workflows requiring efficient contour extraction.

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/contourpy) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/contourpy/)