diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
index 7d11db1dd140..64e5d9716c35 100644
--- a/.gitattributes
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -1,2 +1,4 @@
 * text=auto
+*.svg binary
+*.svg linguist-language=true
 lib/matplotlib/_version.py export-subst