diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/RegionSplitter.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/RegionSplitter.java
index 30f17ee2cc4..bd524e7ef4e 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/RegionSplitter.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/util/RegionSplitter.java
@@ -584,7 +584,7 @@ public class RegionSplitter {
    * @throws IOException if the specified SplitAlgorithm class couldn't be
    * instantiated
    */
-  static SplitAlgorithm newSplitAlgoInstance(Configuration conf,
+  public static SplitAlgorithm newSplitAlgoInstance(Configuration conf,
           String splitClassName) throws IOException {
     Class<?> splitClass;
 
diff --git a/src/main/ruby/hbase.rb b/src/main/ruby/hbase.rb
index 4d27191aea9..3ef4a82254f 100644
--- a/src/main/ruby/hbase.rb
+++ b/src/main/ruby/hbase.rb
@@ -53,6 +53,8 @@ module HBaseConstants
   FILTER = 'FILTER'
   SPLITS = 'SPLITS'
   SPLITS_FILE = 'SPLITS_FILE'
+  SPLITALGO = 'SPLITALGO'
+  NUMREGIONS = 'NUMREGIONS'
 
   # Load constants from hbase java API
   def self.promote_constants(constants)
diff --git a/src/main/ruby/hbase/admin.rb b/src/main/ruby/hbase/admin.rb
index 33cd2088fdf..02f01e20b2a 100644
--- a/src/main/ruby/hbase/admin.rb
+++ b/src/main/ruby/hbase/admin.rb
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ module Hbase
     def initialize(configuration, formatter)
       @admin = org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.HBaseAdmin.new(configuration)
       connection = @admin.getConnection()
+      @conf = configuration
       @zk_wrapper = connection.getZooKeeperWatcher()
       zk = @zk_wrapper.getRecoverableZooKeeper().getZooKeeper()
       @zk_main = org.apache.zookeeper.ZooKeeperMain.new(zk)
@@ -198,6 +199,13 @@ module Hbase
             splits[idx] = split.to_java_bytes
             idx = idx + 1
           end
+        elsif arg.kind_of?(Hash) and (arg.has_key?(NUMREGIONS) or arg.has_key?(SLITALGO))
+          raise(ArgumentError, "Number of regions must be specified") unless arg.has_key?(NUMREGIONS)
+          raise(ArgumentError, "Split algorithm must be specified") unless arg.has_key?(SPLITALGO)
+          raise(ArgumentError, "Number of regions must be geter than 1") unless arg[NUMREGIONS] > 1
+          num_regions = arg[NUMREGIONS]
+          split_algo = org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.RegionSplitter.newSplitAlgoInstance(@conf, arg[SPLITALGO])
+          splits = split_algo.split(JInteger.valueOf(num_regions))
         else
           # Add column to the table
           descriptor = hcd(arg, htd)
diff --git a/src/main/ruby/shell/commands/create.rb b/src/main/ruby/shell/commands/create.rb
index e67e8c1a180..14c1b0ff4f6 100644
--- a/src/main/ruby/shell/commands/create.rb
+++ b/src/main/ruby/shell/commands/create.rb
@@ -35,6 +35,9 @@ Examples:
   hbase> create 't1', {NAME => 'f1', VERSIONS => 1, TTL => 2592000, BLOCKCACHE => true}
   hbase> create 't1', 'f1', {SPLITS => ['10', '20', '30', '40']}
   hbase> create 't1', 'f1', {SPLITS_FILE => 'splits.txt'}
+  hbase> # Optionally pre-split the table into NUMREGIONS, using
+  hbase> # SPLITALGO ("HexStringSplit", "UniformSplit" or classname)
+  hbase> create 't1', 'f1', {NUMREGIONS => 15, SPLITALGO => 'HexStringSplit'}
 EOF
       end