@mathause Thanks! Your solution worked brilliantly when used with contourf(). Here's how the code looks after implementing it.

```python import cartopy.crs as ccrs import xarray as xr import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec

projection = False

ts = xr.tutorial.load_dataset('air_temperature').air[0, ...] ncols, nrows = 2, 2 fig = plt.figure()

ny,nx = ts.shape

dx, dy = nx/ny, 1

figsize = plt.figaspect(float(dy * ncols) / float(dx * nrows))

fig = plt.figure(figsize=figsize)

gs = gridspec.GridSpec(ncols, nrows,wspace=0, hspace=0)

def set_map_layout(axes, width=17.0): """ set figure height, given width

Needs to be called after all plotting is done.
Source: @mathause https://github.com/mathause/mplotutils/blob/v0.1.0/mplotutils/mpl_utils.py#L47-L100
Parameters
----------
axes : ndarray of (Geo)Axes
    Array with all axes of the figure.
width : float
    Width of the full figure in cm. Default 17

..note: currently only works if all the axes have the same aspect
ratio.
"""

if isinstance(axes, plt.Axes):
    ax = axes
else:
    # assumes the first of the axes is representative for all
    ax = axes.flat[0]

# read figure data
f = ax.get_figure()

bottom = f.subplotpars.bottom
top = f.subplotpars.top
left = f.subplotpars.left
right = f.subplotpars.right
hspace = f.subplotpars.hspace
wspace = f.subplotpars.wspace

# data ratio is the aspect
aspect = ax.get_data_ratio()
# get geometry tells how many subplots there are
nrow, ncol, __ = ax.get_geometry()

# width of one plot, taking into account
# left * wf, (1-right) * wf, ncol * wp, (1-ncol) * wp * wspace
wp = (width - width * (left + (1-right))) / (ncol + (ncol-1) * wspace)

# height of one plot
hp = wp * aspect

# height of figure
height = (hp * (nrow + ((nrow - 1) * hspace))) / (1. - (bottom + (1 - top)))

f.set_figwidth(width / 2.54)
f.set_figheight(height / 2.54)

for i in range(4): if projection: ax = plt.subplot(gs[i], projection=ccrs.PlateCarree()) ax.coastlines() ts.plot.contourf(ax=ax, add_colorbar=False, add_labels=False, levels=11, transform=ccrs.PlateCarree()) else: ax = plt.subplot(gs[i]) ts.plot.contourf(ax=ax, add_colorbar=False, levels=11, add_labels=False)

ax.set_aspect('auto', adjustable='box-forced')
if (i == 0) or (i == 1):
    ax.set_title('title')
if (i == 0) or (i == 2):
    ax.set_ylabel('ylabel')
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])
set_map_layout(ax)# plt.tight_layout()

fig.subplots_adjust()

``` without projection:

With projection: