To highlight a specific country in a matplotlib plot (e.g., a world map or a choropleth map), you can use the following approach:

Steps to Highlight a Country

1. Use geopandas and matplotlib to plot the countries.
2. Filter the country you want to highlight.
3. Plot all countries in a base color.
4. Overlay the highlighted country in a different color.

Example Code

Here’s a practical example using geopandas and matplotlib:

python
Copy
import geopandas as gpd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Load a world map dataset
world = gpd.read_file(gpd.datasets.get_path('naturalearth_lowres'))

# Select the country to highlight (e.g., France)
country_to_highlight = 'France'
highlighted_country = world[world['name'] == country_to_highlight]

# Plot all countries in light gray
ax = world.plot(color='lightgray', edgecolor='black', figsize=(10, 6))

# Overlay the highlighted country in red
highlighted_country.plot(ax=ax, color='red', edgecolor='black')

# Customize the plot
plt.title(f"Highlighted Country: {country_to_highlight}")
plt.axis('off')  # Remove axis
plt.show()

Key Points

• geopandas is used to handle geographic data.
• world.plot() plots all countries in a base color.
• highlighted_country.plot(ax=ax, ...) overlays the selected country in a different color.
• plt.axis('off') removes the axis for a cleaner look.

Alternative: Using cartopy (for more advanced maps)

If you need more control (e.g., projections), you can use cartopy:

python
Copy
import cartopy.io.img_tiles as cimgt
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import cartopy.crs as ccrs

# Create a figure with a plate carree projection
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(10, 6))
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1, projection=ccrs.PlateCarree())

# Add coastlines and countries
ax.coastlines()
ax.add_feature(cartopy.feature.BORDERS, linestyle=':')
ax.add_feature(cartopy.feature.COUNTRY_BORDERS, linestyle='-')

# Highlight France (example)
ax.add_geometries(
    [world[world['name'] == 'France'].geometry.iloc[0]],
    ccrs.PlateCarree(),
    facecolor='red',
    edgecolor='black'
)

plt.title("Highlighted Country: France")
plt.show()