diff --git a/doc/api/api_changes/2015-07-13_scatter_color_kwarg.rst b/doc/api/api_changes/2015-07-13_scatter_color_kwarg.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..b93e17abd6a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/api/api_changes/2015-07-13_scatter_color_kwarg.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+Deprecated the 'color' keyword argument to scatter
+``````````````````````````````````````````````````
+
+The ``scatter`` function takes a ``color`` keyword argument, but this argument
+is not defined in the documentation, and there was a comment in the code
+suggesting it should be deprecated. Thus, the argument has been deprecated and
+removed from the examples; instead, users should use the ``c`` keyword argument
+to set the color of the scatter points.
diff --git a/doc/users/plotting/examples/annotate_text_arrow.py b/doc/users/plotting/examples/annotate_text_arrow.py
index 4ed10f99670e..367196b7a4e9 100644
--- a/doc/users/plotting/examples/annotate_text_arrow.py
+++ b/doc/users/plotting/examples/annotate_text_arrow.py
@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@
 x2 = 1. + numpy.random.randn(100)
 y2 = 1. + numpy.random.randn(100)
 
-ax.scatter(x1, y1, color="r")
-ax.scatter(x2, y2, color="g")
+ax.scatter(x1, y1, c="r")
+ax.scatter(x2, y2, c="g")
 
 bbox_props = dict(boxstyle="round", fc="w", ec="0.5", alpha=0.9)
 ax.text(-2, -2, "Sample A", ha="center", va="center", size=20,
diff --git a/examples/pylab_examples/subplots_demo.py b/examples/pylab_examples/subplots_demo.py
index dac9e173587b..4b932a677f10 100644
--- a/examples/pylab_examples/subplots_demo.py
+++ b/examples/pylab_examples/subplots_demo.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
 ax1.plot(x, y)
 ax1.set_title('Sharing both axes')
 ax2.scatter(x, y)
-ax3.scatter(x, 2 * y ** 2 - 1, color='r')
+ax3.scatter(x, 2 * y ** 2 - 1, c='r')
 # Fine-tune figure; make subplots close to each other and hide x ticks for
 # all but bottom plot.
 f.subplots_adjust(hspace=0)
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
 ax1.plot(x, y)
 ax1.set_title('Sharing x per column, y per row')
 ax2.scatter(x, y)
-ax3.scatter(x, 2 * y ** 2 - 1, color='r')
+ax3.scatter(x, 2 * y ** 2 - 1, c='r')
 ax4.plot(x, 2 * y ** 2 - 1, color='r')
 
 # Four axes, returned as a 2-d array
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
index a41160789fbd..7758cb242278 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/axes/_axes.py
@@ -3672,6 +3672,11 @@ def scatter(self, x, y, s=20, c=None, marker='o', cmap=None, norm=None,
         # since it isn't, I am giving it low priority.
         co = kwargs.pop('color', None)
         if co is not None:
+            msg = (
+                "The 'color' keyword argument to scatter is deprecated, "
+                "please use 'c' instead."
+            )
+            warnings.warn(msg, mplDeprecation, stacklevel=1)
             if edgecolors is None:
                 edgecolors = co
             if facecolors is None: