diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4.build b/ci/requirements-3.4.build
deleted file mode 100644
index e8a957f70d40e..0000000000000
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4.build
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,4 +0,0 @@
-python=3.4*
-numpy=1.8.1
-cython=0.24.1
-libgfortran=1.0
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4.pip b/ci/requirements-3.4.pip
deleted file mode 100644
index 4e5fe52d56cf1..0000000000000
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4.pip
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,2 +0,0 @@
-python-dateutil==2.2
-blosc
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4.run b/ci/requirements-3.4.run
deleted file mode 100644
index 3e12adae7dd9f..0000000000000
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4.run
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,18 +0,0 @@
-pytz=2015.7
-numpy=1.8.1
-openpyxl
-xlsxwriter
-xlrd
-xlwt
-html5lib
-patsy
-beautiful-soup
-scipy
-numexpr
-pytables
-lxml
-sqlalchemy
-bottleneck
-pymysql=0.6.3
-psycopg2
-jinja2=2.8
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.run b/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.run
deleted file mode 100644
index 90156f62c6e71..0000000000000
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.run
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,20 +0,0 @@
-python-dateutil
-pytz
-numpy=1.10*
-openpyxl
-xlsxwriter
-xlrd
-xlwt
-html5lib
-patsy
-beautiful-soup
-scipy
-numexpr=2.4.6
-pytables
-matplotlib
-lxml
-sqlalchemy
-bottleneck
-pymysql
-psycopg2
-jinja2=2.8
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.sh b/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.sh
deleted file mode 100644
index 24f1e042ed69e..0000000000000
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.sh
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,7 +0,0 @@
-#!/bin/bash
-
-source activate pandas
-
-echo "install 34_slow"
-
-conda install -n pandas -c conda-forge matplotlib
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.build b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.build
similarity index 58%
rename from ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.build
rename to ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.build
index 88212053af472..1c4b46aea3865 100644
--- a/ci/requirements-3.4_SLOW.build
+++ b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.build
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-python=3.4*
+python=3.6*
 python-dateutil
 pytz
 nomkl
-numpy=1.10*
+numpy
 cython
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.pip b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.pip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..e69de29bb2d1d
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.run b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.run
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..ae456f4f9f38a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE.run
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+python-dateutil
+pytz
+numpy
+scipy
+openpyxl
+xlsxwriter
+xlrd
+xlwt
+numexpr
+pytables
+matplotlib
+lxml
+html5lib
+jinja2
+sqlalchemy
+pymysql
+# feather-format (not available on defaults ATM)
+# psycopg2 (not avail on defaults ATM)
+beautifulsoup4
+s3fs
+xarray
+ipython
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.build b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.build
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..1c4b46aea3865
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.build
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+python=3.6*
+python-dateutil
+pytz
+nomkl
+numpy
+cython
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.pip b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.pip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..e69de29bb2d1d
diff --git a/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.run b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.run
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..28131031f0bbd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/requirements-3.6_LOCALE_SLOW.run
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+python-dateutil
+pytz
+numpy
+scipy
+openpyxl
+xlsxwriter
+xlrd
+xlwt
+numexpr
+pytables
+matplotlib
+lxml
+html5lib
+jinja2
+sqlalchemy
+pymysql
+# feather-format (not available on defaults ATM)
+# psycopg2 (not available on defaults ATM)
+beautifulsoup4
+s3fs
+xarray
+ipython
diff --git a/circle.yml b/circle.yml
index fa2da0680f388..9d49145af54e3 100644
--- a/circle.yml
+++ b/circle.yml
@@ -23,9 +23,9 @@ dependencies:
        0)
          sudo apt-get install language-pack-it && ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="2.7_COMPAT" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="it_IT.UTF-8" ;;
        1)
-         sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh-hans && ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="3.4_SLOW" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="zh_CN.UTF-8" ;;
+         sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh-hans && ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="3.6_LOCALE" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="zh_CN.UTF-8" ;;
        2)
-         sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh-hans && ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="3.4" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="zh_CN.UTF-8" ;;
+         sudo apt-get install language-pack-zh-hans && ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="3.6_LOCALE_SLOW" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="zh_CN.UTF-8" ;;
        3)
          ./ci/install_circle.sh JOB="3.5_ASCII" LOCALE_OVERRIDE="C" ;;
       esac
diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
index 3df0a21facb02..f392687a0a3fd 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v0.21.0.txt
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ Other Enhancements
 Backwards incompatible API changes
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-
+- Support has been dropped for Python 3.4 (:issue:`15251`)
 
 .. _whatsnew_0210.api:
 
diff --git a/pandas/compat/__init__.py b/pandas/compat/__init__.py
index 2fe6359fd1ea6..9eacb9acef2c9 100644
--- a/pandas/compat/__init__.py
+++ b/pandas/compat/__init__.py
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
 Key items to import for 2/3 compatible code:
 * iterators: range(), map(), zip(), filter(), reduce()
 * lists: lrange(), lmap(), lzip(), lfilter()
-* unicode: u() [u"" is a syntax error in Python 3.0-3.2]
+* unicode: u() [no unicode builtin in Python 3]
 * longs: long (int in Python 3)
 * callable
 * iterable method compatibility: iteritems, iterkeys, itervalues
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ def signature(f):
     unichr = chr
 
     # This was introduced in Python 3.3, but we don't support
-    # Python 3.x < 3.4, so checking PY3 is safe.
+    # Python 3.x < 3.5, so checking PY3 is safe.
     FileNotFoundError = FileNotFoundError
 
     # list-producing versions of the major Python iterating functions
diff --git a/pandas/tests/util/test_util.py b/pandas/tests/util/test_util.py
index 532d596220501..abd82cfa89f94 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/util/test_util.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/util/test_util.py
@@ -16,9 +16,6 @@
 
 import pandas.util.testing as tm
 
-CURRENT_LOCALE = locale.getlocale()
-LOCALE_OVERRIDE = os.environ.get('LOCALE_OVERRIDE', None)
-
 
 class TestDecorators(object):
 
@@ -412,6 +409,7 @@ class TestLocaleUtils(object):
     @classmethod
     def setup_class(cls):
         cls.locales = tm.get_locales()
+        cls.current_locale = locale.getlocale()
 
         if not cls.locales:
             pytest.skip("No locales found")
@@ -421,6 +419,7 @@ def setup_class(cls):
     @classmethod
     def teardown_class(cls):
         del cls.locales
+        del cls.current_locale
 
     def test_get_locales(self):
         # all systems should have at least a single locale
@@ -438,17 +437,19 @@ def test_set_locale(self):
             pytest.skip("Only a single locale found, no point in "
                         "trying to test setting another locale")
 
-        if all(x is None for x in CURRENT_LOCALE):
+        if all(x is None for x in self.current_locale):
             # Not sure why, but on some travis runs with pytest,
             # getlocale() returned (None, None).
-            pytest.skip("CURRENT_LOCALE is not set.")
+            pytest.skip("Current locale is not set.")
+
+        locale_override = os.environ.get('LOCALE_OVERRIDE', None)
 
-        if LOCALE_OVERRIDE is None:
+        if locale_override is None:
             lang, enc = 'it_CH', 'UTF-8'
-        elif LOCALE_OVERRIDE == 'C':
+        elif locale_override == 'C':
             lang, enc = 'en_US', 'ascii'
         else:
-            lang, enc = LOCALE_OVERRIDE.split('.')
+            lang, enc = locale_override.split('.')
 
         enc = codecs.lookup(enc).name
         new_locale = lang, enc
@@ -465,4 +466,4 @@ def test_set_locale(self):
                 assert normalized_locale == new_locale
 
         current_locale = locale.getlocale()
-        assert current_locale == CURRENT_LOCALE
+        assert current_locale == self.current_locale
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 9a04bb6994869..ff537d5868db6 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -246,7 +246,6 @@ def build_extensions(self):
     'Programming Language :: Python :: 2',
     'Programming Language :: Python :: 3',
     'Programming Language :: Python :: 2.7',
-    'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.4',
     'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.5',
     'Programming Language :: Python :: 3.6',
     'Programming Language :: Cython',
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 85c5d90fde7fb..45ad7fc451e76 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 # and then run "tox" from this directory.
 
 [tox]
-envlist = py27, py34, py35
+envlist = py27, py35, py36
 
 [testenv]
 deps =
@@ -49,14 +49,14 @@ deps =
     bigquery
     {[testenv]deps}
 
-[testenv:py34]
+[testenv:py35]
 deps =
-    numpy==1.8.0
+    numpy==1.10.0
     {[testenv]deps}
 
-[testenv:py35]
+[testenv:py36]
 deps =
-    numpy==1.10.0
+    numpy
     {[testenv]deps}
 
 [testenv:openpyxl1]