diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/contour.py b/lib/matplotlib/contour.py
index 6aab5222b783..2f8c934e70b9 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/contour.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/contour.py
@@ -1600,7 +1600,7 @@ def _initialize_x_y(self, z):
 
     If an int *n*, use `~matplotlib.ticker.MaxNLocator`, which tries
     to automatically choose no more than *n+1* "nice" contour levels
-    between *vmin* and *vmax*.
+    between minimum and maximum numeric values of *Z*.
 
     If array-like, draw contour lines at the specified levels.
     The values must be in increasing order.
diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/tri/tricontour.py b/lib/matplotlib/tri/tricontour.py
index df3b44d941ef..ee9d85030c21 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/tri/tricontour.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/tri/tricontour.py
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ def _contour_args(self, args, kwargs):
 
     If an int *n*, use `~matplotlib.ticker.MaxNLocator`, which tries to
     automatically choose no more than *n+1* "nice" contour levels between
-    *vmin* and *vmax*.
+    between minimum and maximum numeric values of *Z*.
 
     If array-like, draw contour lines at the specified levels.  The values must
     be in increasing order.