title: Is it possible to draw basemap on many subplots without redrawing the map many times
body: <p>Normally when you create a basemap, you can assign it to an axes instance, for example </p>
  
  <pre><code>fig = plt.figure()
  ax = fig.add_subplot()
  m = Basemap(..., ax=ax)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, if I want to make, say, 30 subplots, I need to do something like</p>
  
  <pre><code>fig, axes = plt.subplots(6,5)
  for ax in axes:
      m = Basemap(..., ax=ax)
      # plot some other things
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But redrawing the basemap takes a long time. I was wondering whether it is possible to create the basemap instance once, and then assign it to all my axes. Something like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>m0 = Basemap(...) # without ax = ax
  for ax in axes:
      m = add_basemap(ax,m0)
      # plot some other things
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this possible? </p>
  
  <p>As an alternative, I thought about creating the figure with all basemaps once and then pickling it, but the number of subplots is not always the same.</p>