diff --git a/doc/whats-new.rst b/doc/whats-new.rst
index 9ac9639b8c1..52114be991b 100644
--- a/doc/whats-new.rst
+++ b/doc/whats-new.rst
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ v0.19.1 (unreleased)
 
 New Features
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
+- Xarray now does a better job rendering variable names that are long LaTeX sequences when plotting (:issue:`5681`, :pull:`5682`).
+  By `Tomas Chor <https://github.com/tomchor>`_.
 - Add a option to disable the use of ``bottleneck`` (:pull:`5560`)
   By `Justus Magin <https://github.com/keewis>`_.
 - Added ``**kwargs`` argument to :py:meth:`open_rasterio` to access overviews (:issue:`3269`).
diff --git a/xarray/plot/utils.py b/xarray/plot/utils.py
index f2f296096a5..af5859c1f14 100644
--- a/xarray/plot/utils.py
+++ b/xarray/plot/utils.py
@@ -490,7 +490,13 @@ def _get_units_from_attrs(da):
     else:
         units = _get_units_from_attrs(da)
 
-    return "\n".join(textwrap.wrap(name + extra + units, 30))
+    # Treat `name` differently if it's a latex sequence
+    if name.startswith("$") and (name.count("$") % 2 == 0):
+        return "$\n$".join(
+            textwrap.wrap(name + extra + units, 60, break_long_words=False)
+        )
+    else:
+        return "\n".join(textwrap.wrap(name + extra + units, 30))
 
 
 def _interval_to_mid_points(array):
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_plot.py b/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
index ee8bafb8fa7..e358bd47485 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
@@ -2950,3 +2950,10 @@ def test_datarray_scatter(x, y, z, hue, markersize, row, col, add_legend, add_co
             add_legend=add_legend,
             add_colorbar=add_colorbar,
         )
+
+
+def test_latex_name_isnt_split():
+    da = xr.DataArray()
+    long_latex_name = r"$Ra_s = \mathrm{mean}(\epsilon_k) / \mu M^2_\infty$"
+    da.attrs = dict(long_name=long_latex_name)
+    assert label_from_attrs(da) == long_latex_name