diff --git a/examples/mixture/plot_gmm_covariances.py b/examples/mixture/plot_gmm_covariances.py
index 2b4cd88642a98..14a0efccc01da 100644
--- a/examples/mixture/plot_gmm_covariances.py
+++ b/examples/mixture/plot_gmm_covariances.py
@@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ def make_ellipses(gmm, ax):
         ell.set_clip_box(ax.bbox)
         ell.set_alpha(0.5)
         ax.add_artist(ell)
+        ax.set_aspect('equal', 'datalim')
 
 iris = datasets.load_iris()