I like the wording in the MATLAB docs (since Matlab committed the original sin, the axes/axis/figure API has been around since the late '80s, matplotlib is just

I like the wording in the MATLAB docs (since Matlab committed the original sin, the axes/axis/figure API has been around since the late '80s, matplotlib is just a port to python): https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/axes.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/axes.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/axis.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/axis.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/figure.html https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/figure.html So they emphasize the cartesianess of the axes.