Set default x-axis tick labels on the top

We can use rcParams["xtick.labeltop"] (default: False) and rcParams["xtick.top"] (default: False) and rcParams["xtick.labelbottom"] (default: True) and rcParams["xtick.bottom"] (default: True) to control where on the axes ticks and their labels appear.

These properties can also be set in .matplotlib/matplotlibrc.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np


plt.rcParams['xtick.bottom'] = plt.rcParams['xtick.labelbottom'] = False
plt.rcParams['xtick.top'] = plt.rcParams['xtick.labeltop'] = True

x = np.arange(10)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

ax.plot(x)
ax.set_title('xlabel top')  # Note title moves to make room for ticks

plt.show()