diff --git a/include/linux/swap.h b/include/linux/swap.h
index c335055c4253e49a18f5513cc65db47162802bb6..ed6ebe690f4ac9211a253d162c92c9b5fd98d71b 100644
--- a/include/linux/swap.h
+++ b/include/linux/swap.h
@@ -155,6 +155,15 @@ enum {
 #define SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX 32
 #define COMPACT_CLUSTER_MAX SWAP_CLUSTER_MAX
 
+/*
+ * Ratio between the present memory in the zone and the "gap" that
+ * we're allowing kswapd to shrink in addition to the per-zone high
+ * wmark, even for zones that already have the high wmark satisfied,
+ * in order to provide better per-zone lru behavior. We are ok to
+ * spend not more than 1% of the memory for this zone balancing "gap".
+ */
+#define KSWAPD_ZONE_BALANCE_GAP_RATIO 100
+
 #define SWAP_MAP_MAX	0x3e	/* Max duplication count, in first swap_map */
 #define SWAP_MAP_BAD	0x3f	/* Note pageblock is bad, in first swap_map */
 #define SWAP_HAS_CACHE	0x40	/* Flag page is cached, in first swap_map */
diff --git a/mm/vmscan.c b/mm/vmscan.c
index 665b090b6c727369368d08ee382161b92e075baa..060e4c1914033fe61b2f06a445d6935b559eba2f 100644
--- a/mm/vmscan.c
+++ b/mm/vmscan.c
@@ -2399,6 +2399,7 @@ static unsigned long balance_pgdat(pg_data_t *pgdat, int order,
 		for (i = 0; i <= end_zone; i++) {
 			struct zone *zone = pgdat->node_zones + i;
 			int nr_slab;
+			unsigned long balance_gap;
 
 			if (!populated_zone(zone))
 				continue;
@@ -2415,11 +2416,20 @@ static unsigned long balance_pgdat(pg_data_t *pgdat, int order,
 			mem_cgroup_soft_limit_reclaim(zone, order, sc.gfp_mask);
 
 			/*
-			 * We put equal pressure on every zone, unless one
-			 * zone has way too many pages free already.
+			 * We put equal pressure on every zone, unless
+			 * one zone has way too many pages free
+			 * already. The "too many pages" is defined
+			 * as the high wmark plus a "gap" where the
+			 * gap is either the low watermark or 1%
+			 * of the zone, whichever is smaller.
 			 */
+			balance_gap = min(low_wmark_pages(zone),
+				(zone->present_pages +
+					KSWAPD_ZONE_BALANCE_GAP_RATIO-1) /
+				KSWAPD_ZONE_BALANCE_GAP_RATIO);
 			if (!zone_watermark_ok_safe(zone, order,
-					8*high_wmark_pages(zone), end_zone, 0))
+					high_wmark_pages(zone) + balance_gap,
+					end_zone, 0))
 				shrink_zone(priority, zone, &sc);
 			reclaim_state->reclaimed_slab = 0;
 			nr_slab = shrink_slab(sc.nr_scanned, GFP_KERNEL,