diff --git a/.Rbuildignore b/.Rbuildignore
index db6b83d3c..794e09772 100644
--- a/.Rbuildignore
+++ b/.Rbuildignore
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@ visual_test
 ^.*\.Rproj$
 ^\.Rproj\.user$
 ^\.travis\.yml$
+^/\.gitattributes$
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5a9da3931
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+/NEWS merge=union