title: Showing legend for only one subplot using matplotlib
body: <p>I'm facing a problem in showing the legend in the correct format using matplotlib. </p>
  
  <p>EDIT: I have 4 subplots in a figure in 2 by 2 format and I want legend only on the first subplot which has two lines plotted on it. The legend that I got using the code attached below contained endless entries and extended vertically throughout the figure. When I use the same code using linspace to generate fake data the legend works absolutely fine. </p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy as np
  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
  import matplotlib.ticker as mtick
  import os
  
  #------------------set default directory, import data and create column output vectors---------------------------#
  
  path="C:/Users/Pacman/Data files"
  os.chdir(path)
  data =np.genfromtxt('vrp.txt')
  
  x=np.array([data[:,][:,0]])
  
  y1=np.array([data[:,][:,6]])
  y2=np.array([data[:,][:,7]])
  y3=np.array([data[:,][:,9]])
  y4=np.array([data[:,][:,11]])
  y5=np.array([data[:,][:,10]])
  
  nrows=2
  ncols=2
  tick_l=6   #length of ticks
  fs_axis=16 #font size of axis labels
  
  
  plt.rcParams['axes.linewidth'] = 2         #Sets global line width of all the axis
  plt.rcParams['xtick.labelsize']=14         #Sets global font size for x-axis labels
  plt.rcParams['ytick.labelsize']=14         #Sets global font size for y-axis labels
  
  
  
  plt.subplot(nrows, ncols, 1)
  
  ax=plt.subplot(nrows, ncols, 1)
  l1=plt.plot(x, y2, 'yo',label='Flow rate-fan')
  l2=plt.plot(x,y3,'ro',label='Flow rate-discharge')
  plt.title('(a)')
  plt.ylabel('Flow rate ($m^3 s^{-1}$)',fontsize=fs_axis)
  plt.xlabel('Rupture Position (ft)',fontsize=fs_axis)
  
  # This part is not working
  plt.legend(loc='upper right', fontsize='x-large')
  
  #Same code for rest of the subplots
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I tried to implement a fix suggested in the following link, however, could not make it work:
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9834452/how-do-i-make-a-single-legend-for-many-subplots-with-matplotlib">how do I make a single legend for many subplots with matplotlib?</a></p>
  
  <p>Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated.</p>