Where does pip install its packages?

pip show <package name> will provide the location for Windows and macOS, and I'm guessing any system. :)

For example:

> pip show cvxopt
Name: cvxopt
Version: 1.2.0
...
Location: /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages

pip when used with virtualenv will generally install packages in the path <virtualenv_name>/lib/<python_ver>/site-packages.

For example, I created a test virtualenv named venv_test with Python 2.7, and the django folder is in venv_test/lib/python2.7/site-packages/django.

pip list -v can be used to list packages' install locations, introduced in https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/news/#b1-2018-03-31

Show install locations when list command ran with “-v” option. (#979)

>pip list -v
Package                  Version   Location                                                             Installer
------------------------ --------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------
alabaster                0.7.12    c:\users\me\appdata\local\programs\python\python38\lib\site-packages pip
apipkg                   1.5       c:\users\me\appdata\local\programs\python\python38\lib\site-packages pip
argcomplete              1.10.3    c:\users\me\appdata\local\programs\python\python38\lib\site-packages pip
astroid                  2.3.3     c:\users\me\appdata\local\programs\python\python38\lib\site-packages pip
...

This feature is introduced in pip 10.0.0b1. On Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver), pip or pip3 installed with sudo apt install python-pip or sudo apt install python3-pip is 9.0.1 which doesn't have this feature.

Check https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/5599 for suitable ways of upgrading pip or pip3.

Easiest way is probably

pip3 -V

This will show you where your pip is installed and therefore where your packages are located.

By default, on Linux, Pip installs packages to /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages.

Using virtualenv or --user during install will change this default location. If you use pip show make sure you are using the right user or else pip may not see the packages you are referencing.

In a Python interpreter or script, you can do

import site
site.getsitepackages() # List of global package locations

and

site.getusersitepackages() # String for user-specific package location

For locations third-party packages (those not in the core Python distribution) are installed to.

On my Homebrew-installed Python on macOS, the former outputs

['/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages'],

which canonicalizes to the same path output by pip show, as mentioned in a previous answer:

$ readlink -f /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.7.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-packages
/usr/local/lib/python3.7/site-packages

Reference: https://docs.python.org/3/library/site.html#site.getsitepackages

The safest way is to call pip through the specific python that you are executing. If you run pip show pip directly, it may be calling a different pip than the one that python is calling. Examples:

$ python -m pip show pip
$ python3 -m pip show pip
$ /usr/bin/python -m pip show pip
$ /usr/local/bin/python3 -m pip show pip

Here's an example showing how they can differ:

$ pip show pip

Location: /usr/local/lib/python3.9/site-packages

$ python -m pip show pip

Location: /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages

One can import the package then consult its help

import statsmodels
help(sm)

At the very bottom of the help there is a section FILE that indicates where this package was installed.

This solution was tested with at least matplotlib (3.1.2) and statsmodels (0.11.1) (python 3.8.2).