diff --git a/conftest.py b/conftest.py
index 258a670dd..21f152e45 100644
--- a/conftest.py
+++ b/conftest.py
@@ -2,11 +2,7 @@ import six
 import pytest
 from twisted.python import log
 
-from scrapy import optional_features
-
 collect_ignore = ["scrapy/stats.py", "scrapy/project.py"]
-if 'django' not in optional_features:
-    collect_ignore.append("tests/test_djangoitem/models.py")
 
 if six.PY3:
     for line in open('tests/py3-ignores.txt'):
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index d8601c9ab..97ec9539d 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -154,7 +154,6 @@ Solving specific problems
    topics/autothrottle
    topics/benchmarking
    topics/jobs
-   topics/djangoitem
 
 :doc:`faq`
     Get answers to most frequently asked questions.
@@ -198,9 +197,6 @@ Solving specific problems
 :doc:`topics/jobs`
     Learn how to pause and resume crawls for large spiders.
 
-:doc:`topics/djangoitem`
-    Write scraped items using Django models.
-
 .. _extending-scrapy:
 
 Extending Scrapy
diff --git a/docs/topics/djangoitem.rst b/docs/topics/djangoitem.rst
index 84417dfab..ae40401a7 100644
--- a/docs/topics/djangoitem.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/djangoitem.rst
@@ -4,146 +4,8 @@
 DjangoItem
 ==========
 
-:class:`DjangoItem` is a class of item that gets its fields definition from a
-Django model, you simply create a :class:`DjangoItem` and specify what Django
-model it relates to.
+DjangoItem has been moved into a separate project.
 
-Besides of getting the model fields defined on your item, :class:`DjangoItem`
-provides a method to create and populate a Django model instance with the item
-data.
+It is hosted at:
 
-Using DjangoItem
-================
-
-:class:`DjangoItem` works much like ModelForms in Django, you create a subclass
-and define its ``django_model`` attribute to be a valid Django model. With this
-you will get an item with a field for each Django model field.
-
-In addition, you can define fields that aren't present in the model and even
-override fields that are present in the model defining them in the item.
-
-Let's see some examples:
-
-Creating a Django model for the examples::
-
-    from django.db import models
-
-    class Person(models.Model):
-        name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
-        age = models.IntegerField()
-
-Defining a basic :class:`DjangoItem`::
-
-    from scrapy.contrib.djangoitem import DjangoItem
-
-    class PersonItem(DjangoItem):
-        django_model = Person
-
-:class:`DjangoItem` work just like :class:`~scrapy.item.Item`::
-
-    >>> p = PersonItem()
-    >>> p['name'] = 'John'
-    >>> p['age'] = '22'
-
-To obtain the Django model from the item, we call the extra method
-:meth:`~DjangoItem.save` of the :class:`DjangoItem`::
-
-    >>> person = p.save()
-    >>> person.name
-    'John'
-    >>> person.age
-    '22'
-    >>> person.id
-    1
-
-The model is already saved when we call :meth:`~DjangoItem.save`, we
-can prevent this by calling it with ``commit=False``. We can use
-``commit=False`` in :meth:`~DjangoItem.save` method to obtain an unsaved model::
-
-    >>> person = p.save(commit=False)
-    >>> person.name
-    'John'
-    >>> person.age
-    '22'
-    >>> person.id
-    None
-
-As said before, we can add other fields to the item::
-
-    import scrapy
-    from scrapy.contrib.djangoitem import DjangoItem
-
-    class PersonItem(DjangoItem):
-        django_model = Person
-        sex = scrapy.Field()
-
-::
-
-   >>> p = PersonItem()
-   >>> p['name'] = 'John'
-   >>> p['age'] = '22'
-   >>> p['sex'] = 'M'
-
-.. note:: fields added to the item won't be taken into account when doing a :meth:`~DjangoItem.save`
-
-And we can override the fields of the model with your own::
-
-    class PersonItem(DjangoItem):
-        django_model = Person
-        name = scrapy.Field(default='No Name')
-
-This is useful to provide properties to the field, like a default or any other
-property that your project uses.
-
-DjangoItem caveats
-==================
-
-DjangoItem is a rather convenient way to integrate Scrapy projects with Django
-models, but bear in mind that Django ORM may not scale well if you scrape a lot
-of items (ie. millions) with Scrapy. This is because a relational backend is
-often not a good choice for a write intensive application (such as a web
-crawler), specially if the database is highly normalized and with many indices.
-
-Django settings set up
-======================
-
-To use the Django models outside the Django application you need to set up the
-``DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE`` environment variable and --in most cases-- modify
-the ``PYTHONPATH`` environment variable to be able to import the settings
-module.
-
-There are many ways to do this depending on your use case and preferences.
-Below is detailed one of the simplest ways to do it.
-
-Suppose your Django project is named ``mysite``, is located in the path
-``/home/projects/mysite`` and you have created an app ``myapp`` with the model
-``Person``. That means your directory structure is something like this::
-
-    /home/projects/mysite
-    ├── manage.py
-    ├── myapp
-    │   ├── __init__.py
-    │   ├── models.py
-    │   ├── tests.py
-    │   └── views.py
-    └── mysite
-        ├── __init__.py
-        ├── settings.py
-        ├── urls.py
-        └── wsgi.py
-
-Then you need to add ``/home/projects/mysite`` to the ``PYTHONPATH``
-environment variable and set up the environment variable
-``DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE`` to ``mysite.settings``. That can be done in your
-Scrapy's settings file by adding the lines below::
-
-  import sys
-  sys.path.append('/home/projects/mysite')
-
-  import os
-  os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'
-
-Notice that we modify the ``sys.path`` variable instead the ``PYTHONPATH``
-environment variable as we are already within the python runtime. If everything
-is right, you should be able to start the ``scrapy shell`` command and import
-the model ``Person`` (i.e. ``from myapp.models import Person``).
+    https://github.com/scrapy/scrapy-djangoitem
diff --git a/scrapy/__init__.py b/scrapy/__init__.py
index d60b239a0..1f38299d2 100644
--- a/scrapy/__init__.py
+++ b/scrapy/__init__.py
@@ -38,13 +38,6 @@ except ImportError:
     pass
 else:
     optional_features.add('boto')
-try:
-    import django
-    del django
-except ImportError:
-    pass
-else:
-    optional_features.add('django')
 
 from twisted import version as _txv
 twisted_version = (_txv.major, _txv.minor, _txv.micro)
diff --git a/scrapy/contrib/djangoitem.py b/scrapy/contrib/djangoitem.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 69f7ef1ac..000000000
--- a/scrapy/contrib/djangoitem.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,75 +0,0 @@
-from scrapy.item import Field, Item, ItemMeta
-from scrapy import optional_features
-if 'django' in optional_features:
-    from django.core.exceptions import ValidationError
-
-
-class DjangoItemMeta(ItemMeta):
-
-    def  __new__(mcs, class_name, bases, attrs):
-        cls = super(DjangoItemMeta, mcs).__new__(mcs, class_name, bases, attrs)
-        cls.fields = cls.fields.copy()
-
-        if cls.django_model:
-            cls._model_fields = []
-            cls._model_meta = cls.django_model._meta
-            for model_field in cls._model_meta.fields:
-                if not model_field.auto_created:
-                    if model_field.name not in cls.fields:
-                        cls.fields[model_field.name] = Field()
-                    cls._model_fields.append(model_field.name)
-        return cls
-
-
-class DjangoItem(Item):
-
-    __metaclass__ = DjangoItemMeta
-
-    django_model = None
-
-    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
-        super(DjangoItem, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
-        self._instance = None
-        self._errors = None
-
-    def save(self, commit=True):
-        if commit:
-            self.instance.save()
-        return self.instance
-
-    def is_valid(self, exclude=None):
-        self._get_errors(exclude)
-        return not bool(self._errors)
-
-    def _get_errors(self, exclude=None):
-        if self._errors is not None:
-            return self._errors
-
-        self._errors = {}
-        if exclude is None:
-            exclude = []
-
-        try:
-            self.instance.clean_fields(exclude=exclude)
-        except ValidationError as e:
-            self._errors = e.update_error_dict(self._errors)
-
-        try:
-            self.instance.clean()
-        except ValidationError as e:
-            self._errors = e.update_error_dict(self._errors)
-
-        # uniqueness is not checked, because it is faster to check it when
-        # saving object to database. Just beware, that failed save()
-        # raises IntegrityError instead of ValidationError.
-
-        return self._errors
-    errors = property(_get_errors)
-
-    @property
-    def instance(self):
-        if self._instance is None:
-            modelargs = dict((k, self.get(k)) for k in self._values
-                             if k in self._model_fields)
-            self._instance = self.django_model(**modelargs)
-        return self._instance
diff --git a/tests/py3-ignores.txt b/tests/py3-ignores.txt
index fb1daf62f..0e7b10386 100644
--- a/tests/py3-ignores.txt
+++ b/tests/py3-ignores.txt
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ tests/test_contrib_linkextractors.py
 tests/test_contrib_loader.py
 tests/test_crawl.py
 tests/test_crawler.py
-tests/test_djangoitem/__init__.py
 tests/test_downloader_handlers.py
 tests/test_downloadermiddleware_ajaxcrawlable.py
 tests/test_downloadermiddleware_cookies.py
diff --git a/tests/test_djangoitem/__init__.py b/tests/test_djangoitem/__init__.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 45fd7c470..000000000
--- a/tests/test_djangoitem/__init__.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,103 +0,0 @@
-import os
-from twisted.trial import unittest
-
-from scrapy.contrib.djangoitem import DjangoItem, Field
-from scrapy import optional_features
-
-os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'tests.test_djangoitem.settings'
-
-if 'django' in optional_features:
-    from .models import Person, IdentifiedPerson
-
-    class BasePersonItem(DjangoItem):
-        django_model = Person
-
-    class NewFieldPersonItem(BasePersonItem):
-        other = Field()
-
-    class OverrideFieldPersonItem(BasePersonItem):
-        age = Field()
-
-    class IdentifiedPersonItem(DjangoItem):
-        django_model = IdentifiedPerson
-
-
-class DjangoItemTest(unittest.TestCase):
-
-    def assertSortedEqual(self, first, second, msg=None):
-        return self.assertEqual(sorted(first), sorted(second), msg)
-
-    def setUp(self):
-        if 'django' not in optional_features:
-            raise unittest.SkipTest("Django is not available")
-
-    def test_base(self):
-        i = BasePersonItem()
-        self.assertSortedEqual(i.fields.keys(), ['age', 'name'])
-
-    def test_new_fields(self):
-        i = NewFieldPersonItem()
-        self.assertSortedEqual(i.fields.keys(), ['age', 'other', 'name'])
-
-    def test_override_field(self):
-        i = OverrideFieldPersonItem()
-        self.assertSortedEqual(i.fields.keys(), ['age', 'name'])
-
-    def test_custom_primary_key_field(self):
-        """
-        Test that if a custom primary key exists, it is
-        in the field list.
-        """
-        i = IdentifiedPersonItem()
-        self.assertSortedEqual(i.fields.keys(), ['age', 'identifier', 'name'])
-
-    def test_save(self):
-        i = BasePersonItem()
-        self.assertSortedEqual(i.fields.keys(), ['age', 'name'])
-
-        i['name'] = 'John'
-        i['age'] = '22'
-        person = i.save(commit=False)
-
-        self.assertEqual(person.name, 'John')
-        self.assertEqual(person.age, '22')
-
-    def test_override_save(self):
-        i = OverrideFieldPersonItem()
-
-        i['name'] = 'John'
-        # it is not obvious that "age" should be saved also, since it was
-        # redefined in child class
-        i['age'] = '22'
-        person = i.save(commit=False)
-
-        self.assertEqual(person.name, 'John')
-        self.assertEqual(person.age, '22')
-
-    def test_validation(self):
-        long_name = 'z' * 300
-        i = BasePersonItem(name=long_name)
-        self.assertFalse(i.is_valid())
-        self.assertEqual(set(i.errors), set(['age', 'name']))
-        i = BasePersonItem(name='John')
-        self.assertTrue(i.is_valid(exclude=['age']))
-        self.assertEqual({}, i.errors)
-
-        # once the item is validated, it does not validate again
-        i['name'] = long_name
-        self.assertTrue(i.is_valid())
-
-    def test_override_validation(self):
-        i = OverrideFieldPersonItem()
-        i['name'] = 'John'
-        self.assertFalse(i.is_valid())
-
-        i = i = OverrideFieldPersonItem()
-        i['name'] = 'John'
-        i['age'] = '22'
-        self.assertTrue(i.is_valid())
-
-    def test_default_field_values(self):
-        i = BasePersonItem()
-        person = i.save(commit=False)
-        self.assertEqual(person.name, 'Robot')
diff --git a/tests/test_djangoitem/models.py b/tests/test_djangoitem/models.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 2beaee752..000000000
--- a/tests/test_djangoitem/models.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,17 +0,0 @@
-from django.db import models
-
-
-class Person(models.Model):
-    name = models.CharField(max_length=255, default='Robot')
-    age = models.IntegerField()
-
-    class Meta:
-        app_label = 'test_djangoitem'
-
-class IdentifiedPerson(models.Model):
-    identifier = models.PositiveIntegerField(primary_key=True)
-    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
-    age = models.IntegerField()
-
-    class Meta:
-        app_label = 'test_djangoitem'
diff --git a/tests/test_djangoitem/settings.py b/tests/test_djangoitem/settings.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 1bee92477..000000000
--- a/tests/test_djangoitem/settings.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,8 +0,0 @@
-DATABASES = {
-    'default': {
-        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
-        'NAME': ':memory:',
-    }
-}
-
-SECRET_KEY = 'top-secret'
diff --git a/tox.ini b/tox.ini
index 2dff74973..ae2ef9e07 100644
--- a/tox.ini
+++ b/tox.ini
@@ -12,7 +12,6 @@ deps =
     # Extras
     boto
     Pillow
-    django
     leveldb
     -rtests/requirements.txt
 commands =
@@ -26,7 +25,6 @@ deps =
     Twisted==11.1.0
     boto==2.2.2
     Pillow<2.0
-    django==1.3.1
     cssselect==0.9.1
     zope.interface==3.6.1
     -rtests/requirements.txt