diff --git a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/MetaTableAccessor.java b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/MetaTableAccessor.java
index e8ce811618d..91f3cf75144 100644
--- a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/MetaTableAccessor.java
+++ b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/MetaTableAccessor.java
@@ -143,16 +143,6 @@ public class MetaTableAccessor {
   private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MetaTableAccessor.class);
   private static final Logger METALOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger("org.apache.hadoop.hbase.META");
 
-  private static final byte[] META_REGION_PREFIX;
-  static {
-    // Copy the prefix from FIRST_META_REGIONINFO into META_REGION_PREFIX.
-    // FIRST_META_REGIONINFO == 'hbase:meta,,1'.  META_REGION_PREFIX == 'hbase:meta,'
-    int len = RegionInfoBuilder.FIRST_META_REGIONINFO.getRegionName().length - 2;
-    META_REGION_PREFIX = new byte [len];
-    System.arraycopy(RegionInfoBuilder.FIRST_META_REGIONINFO.getRegionName(), 0,
-      META_REGION_PREFIX, 0, len);
-  }
-
   @VisibleForTesting
   public static final byte[] REPLICATION_PARENT_QUALIFIER = Bytes.toBytes("parent");