Python basemap module impossible to import

Question

I have troubles to import the basemap module of mpl_toolkits in python. Here is what I get when I run the test.py script from the module directory:

/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/mpl_toolkits/basemap$ python test.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 1, in <module>
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap, shiftgrid
ImportError: No module named basemap

I can't get it since sys.path gives a list of paths where I am sure the directory "basemap" is, in the "mpl_toolkits" directory. There is no problem to import mpl_toolkits. Here is a thing I tried, to manually add the path, and the result:

>>> import sys
>>> sys.path.append('/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/mpl_toolkits/basemap')
>>> import basemap
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "basemap/__init__.py", line 30, in <module>
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import pyproj
ImportError: No module named basemap

I tried to uninstall an reinstall basemap from source (carefully following these instructions), from apt-get, from conda, but it does not change anything: I can't import basemap.

Thank you for your help

Ruthenious

in which environment did you install the module? – Pyroxene

Did you manage to solve this? I am facing the same issue – Ubana

Answer 1

I was facing this issue and I was able to solve it using anaconda

After activating my profile

source activate MyProfileName
conda install basemap

from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# setup Lambert Conformal basemap.
# set resolution=None to skip processing of boundary datasets.
m = Basemap(width=12000000,height=9000000,projection='lcc',
            resolution=None,lat_1=45.,lat_2=55,lat_0=50,lon_0=-107.)
m.bluemarble()
plt.show()

Trudey

Answer 2

I was in the same situation until a minute ago, installing it through this made the trick:

sudo apt-get install libgeos-3.5.0
sudo apt-get install libgeos-dev
pip install https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/archive/master.zip

Jeer

I googled and tried everything I could to get 'from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap' to actually work and your answer was the only one that was successful for me. I am using python 3.6 and I only had to run the pip install line. Anyhow, thanks! – Chasseur

There are a few other solutions for this problem that are available in Stackoverflow but this is perhaps the only one that works on Google's Colab platform. Hence this solution is very useful. – Catercousin

I don't actually see why this should work any differently than running python setup.py build and sudo python setup.py install in a shallow clone of the repository. What's the magic sauce? Is it the specific version of libgeos? – Dhruv

This worked without the 'sudo apt-get install libgeos-3.5.0' – Jackleg

You sir, are the MVP. Had to change libgeos-3.5.0 to libgeos-3.6.2 though (but it is 3.5 years later). – Thaler

DO NOT use sudo pip! Source, source, source. – Jardena

This gives me the error: E: Unable to locate package libgeos-3.5.0 E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'libgeos-3.5.0' E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libgeos-3.5.0' – Jardena

Answer 3

I do not use Anaconda, using MacOS, and I have found this solution works for me. I guess it is straight forward, and should work with both Linux and MacOs.

https://mcmap.net/q/356144/-installing-basemap-on-mac-python

brew install geos
pip3 install https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/archive/master.zip

For Ubuntu,

sudo apt-get install geos
sudo pip3 install https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/archive/master.zip

Antechamber

For RHEL/Centos7 this didn't fully work for me. What worked was: sudo yum -y install geos-devel; wget https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/archive/refs/heads/master.zip; unzip master.zip; cd basemap-master/packages/basemap; python -m pip install .; Test command: python -c "from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap" – Hovey

Answer 4

For me, a simple

pip3 install basemap

did the trick.

Jardena

Yes, that worked for me too! (on windows environment) A simple pip install basecamp followed by from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap – Regine

Appears to have worked for me on an M1 Mac. Thanks! I did get a warning re boundary dataset file, and instructions to download high and full resolution datasets from the basemap-data-hires package. I grabbed this here: pypi.org/project/basemap-data-hires – Susi

If you've already installed geos and pip install basemap still isn't working, make sure that your GEOS_DIR environment variable is pointing to the right place. In my case, running the latest version of geos installed via Homebrew on macOS, that requires running export GEOS_DIR=/usr/local/Cellar/geos/3.11.0/ (or set -Ux GEOS_DIR /usr/local/Cellar/geos/3.11.0/ if you use Fish) – Lamellibranch

Answer 5

I had the same issue; trying to access basemap using sys would produce that error. But this worked for me:

import mpl_toolkits
mpl_toolkits.__path__.append('/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/mpl_toolkits/')
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap

Ubana

I hate it when you have a problem and people ignore it and just say "just add UNKNOWN REPOSITORY to your trusted sources and install xyz". that's not a true solution, it's a dirty workaround (and even the accepted answer, lol). I'm not sure about the cause of the problem but this one seems to tackle the problem by its root. thanks! – Youngs

This seems like it should be the solution. Lesson learned - scroll down to see all answers! Just spent ~30m looking at other workarounds :( – Bib

Answer 6

Download it from here and install it manually. Make sure to download the right version(i.e. if you are Python3.6 then download basemap‑1.2.0‑cp36‑cp36m‑win_amd64.whl)

Reference: https://mcmap.net/q/356145/-how-to-install-matplotlib-39-s-basemap

Gamine

Answer 7

conda install -c anaconda basemap

OR

Go to Anaconda Navigator, search for basemap and click Apply.

Studner

Answer 8

In my Case It works

sudo apt install python3-mpltoolkits.basemap

Weil

Answer 9

This will help you :

!pip install basemap
!pip install basemap-data

you can check this notebook for more information:

for more examples of machine learning algorithms please visit:

Forevermore

Answer 10

I followed this answer:

https://mcmap.net/q/349646/-python-basemap-module-impossible-to-import

Though, I can have wrongly installed mpl_toolkits (or I do not know), in my case I found out, that basemap is located in pymodules like that:

    mpl_toolkits.__path__.append('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpl_toolkits/')
    from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap

So this worked for me on ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Loss

Answer 11

After a day of trying different methods, this worked for me:

conda install -c conda-forge basemap

Champac

Answer 12

The only solution that worked for windows.

Download wheel package from here: https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#basemap Navigate to download location in terminal. Install using pip install

Xanthochroid

Answer 13

I was able to get basemap working through the following steps. Note that I did a --user install.

1. Create shallow clone of basemap (git clone --depth 1 [email protected]:matplotlib/basemap.git) or extract the tarball of the current version.
2. Install the necessary prerequisite libraries (on Ubuntu, libgeos-dev, libproj-dev, libgeos++-dev, proj-data, proj-bin, libgeos-c1v5, libgeos, libproj12, I think).
3. pip install --user pyproj matplotlib geos (not actually sure if geos is necessary).

Now, here's where I had to improvise a little bit. When I install basemap using python setup.py install, it creates a new egg directory among my Python packages. That directory contains an mpl_toolkits subdirectory which duplicates a separate mpl_toolkits directory installed by matplotlib.

So, instead, I did

python setup.py build_ext --inplace
cp -a lib/mpl_toolkits/basemap /my/python/packages/dir/mpl_toolkits/basemap
cp lib/_geoslib.so /my/python/packages/dir

I am now able to run examples like simpletest.py.

Dhruv

Answer 14

I faced the same problem. Couldn't import the Basemap:

from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap

but surprisingly Pycharm saw the library which was apparently installed in this location:

lib/python3.8/site-packages/basemap-1.2.1-py3.8-linux-x86_64.egg/mpl_toolkits/basemap/

So, to make it work, I just created a symbolic link in lib/python3.8/site-packages/mpl_toolkits/:

ln -s ../basemap-1.2.1-py3.8-linux-x86_64.egg/mpl_toolkits/basemap/ basemap

I know it's not a clean solution, but may be sufficient in some cases.

Parian

Answer 15

On Colab you might have to add the basemap module to mpl_toolkits

!pip install basemap
from mpl_toolkits import basemap

At least, I had the same problem and this worked for me.

Leshalesher

Answer 16

For Windows:

To install basemap you need to download the wheel file from this path:

https://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#basemap

for python 3.10 this will be the file:

basemap‑1.3.2‑cp310‑cp310‑win_amd64.whl

Then you have to go to the folder where the above mentioned .whl file is saved and run this command from there:

pip install basemap‑1.3.2‑cp310‑cp310‑win_amd64.whl

---

For Mac OS please refer:

https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/releases:

Make sure you have:

brew install geos
brew install matplotlib
brew install numpy
brew install proj

Add export GEOS_DIR="/user/local/Cellar/geos/3.10.2/" to your .bash profile and reload it via:

source ~/.bash_profile

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap.git

then in the basemap/packages/basemap directory

pip3 install

---

For Colab there are slight variation from Akima's answer since its been a while:

!sudo apt-get install libgeos-3.6.2
!sudo apt-get install libgeos-dev
!pip install git+https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap#subdirectory=packages/basemap

Olshausen

Answer 17

If you're using Anaconda, it has a package for basemap

conda install basemap

(pip doesn't have the basemap package any more)

OR

If you using Ubuntu system you can try

apt install python3-mpltoolkits.basemap

Dundalk

Answer 18

I had trouble with that. Fortunately, I solved the problem. Firstly, I suggest you to set Anaconda up, if you don't have. Then follow steps below;

• Create a new environment in anaconda.
• Install Jupyter Notebook and launch it. If it works, turn it off.
• Change your anaconda environment in your terminal.
• Try installation commands below; conda install basemap conda install forge ... pip install basemap

Pictogram