diff --git a/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py b/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
index 72f37769e27..af200d55e32 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
@@ -371,6 +371,8 @@ def test_urljoins(self):
         self.checkJoin('http:///', '..','http:///')
         self.checkJoin('', 'http://a/b/c/g?y/./x','http://a/b/c/g?y/./x')
         self.checkJoin('', 'http://a/./g', 'http://a/./g')
+        self.checkJoin('svn://pathtorepo/dir1', 'dir2', 'svn://pathtorepo/dir2')
+        self.checkJoin('svn://pathtorepo/dir1', 'dir2', 'svn://pathtorepo/dir2')
 
     def test_RFC2732(self):
         str_cases = [
diff --git a/Lib/urllib/parse.py b/Lib/urllib/parse.py
index 45ae202d5c6..01067ae6ac0 100644
--- a/Lib/urllib/parse.py
+++ b/Lib/urllib/parse.py
@@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
 # A classification of schemes ('' means apply by default)
 uses_relative = ['ftp', 'http', 'gopher', 'nntp', 'imap',
                  'wais', 'file', 'https', 'shttp', 'mms',
-                 'prospero', 'rtsp', 'rtspu', '', 'sftp']
+                 'prospero', 'rtsp', 'rtspu', '', 'sftp',
+                 'svn', 'svn+ssh']
 uses_netloc = ['ftp', 'http', 'gopher', 'nntp', 'telnet',
                'imap', 'wais', 'file', 'mms', 'https', 'shttp',
                'snews', 'prospero', 'rtsp', 'rtspu', 'rsync', '',
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index df0591050f9..22ed1c02375 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -249,6 +249,9 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #12683: urlparse updated to include svn as schemes that uses relative
+  paths. (svn from 1.5 onwards support relative path).
+
 - Issue #12655: Expose functions from sched.h in the os module: sched_yield(),
   sched_setscheduler(), sched_getscheduler(), sched_setparam(),
   sched_get_min_priority(), sched_get_max_priority(), sched_rr_get_interval(),