diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 132b8fb5139..4e2ee3d8ca6 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -236,6 +236,8 @@ Release 0.91.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-3931  Allow adding attributes to Get
    HBASE-3942  The thrift scannerOpen functions should support row caching
                (Adam Worthington)
+   HBASE-2556  Add convenience method to HBaseAdmin to get a collection of
+               HRegionInfo objects for each table (Ming Ma)
 
   TASKS
    HBASE-3559  Move report of split to master OFF the heartbeat channel
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
index 3c1bcb38540..66a2fd91e27 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HBaseAdmin.java
@@ -21,8 +21,10 @@ package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client;
 
 import java.io.Closeable;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.List;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
 
 import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
 import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
@@ -1240,6 +1242,27 @@ public class HBaseAdmin implements Abortable, Closeable {
     new HBaseAdmin(copyOfConf);
   }
 
+  /**
+   * get the regions of a given table.
+   *
+   * @param tableName the name of the table
+   * @return Ordered list of {@link HRegionInfo}.   * 
+   * @throws IOException
+   */  
+  public List<HRegionInfo> getTableRegions(final byte[] tableName) throws IOException
+  {
+      CatalogTracker ct = getCatalogTracker();
+      List<HRegionInfo> Regions;
+      try {
+          Regions = MetaReader.getTableRegions(ct, tableName, true);
+        } finally {
+          cleanupCatalogTracker(ct);
+        }
+      
+      return Regions;	  
+  }
+  
+  
   public void close() throws IOException {
     if (this.connection != null) {
       this.connection.close();
diff --git a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
index b3eb465d6d0..d551478d607 100644
--- a/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
+++ b/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/ThriftServer.java
@@ -270,11 +270,10 @@ public class ThriftServer {
     public List<TRegionInfo> getTableRegions(ByteBuffer tableName)
     throws IOError {
       try{
-        HTable table = getTable(tableName);
-        Map<HRegionInfo, HServerAddress> regionsInfo = table.getRegionsInfo();
+        List<HRegionInfo> HRegions = this.admin.getTableRegions(tableName.array());
         List<TRegionInfo> regions = new ArrayList<TRegionInfo>();
 
-        for (HRegionInfo regionInfo : regionsInfo.keySet()){
+        for (HRegionInfo regionInfo : HRegions){
           TRegionInfo region = new TRegionInfo();
           region.startKey = ByteBuffer.wrap(regionInfo.getStartKey());
           region.endKey = ByteBuffer.wrap(regionInfo.getEndKey());
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/TestAdmin.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/TestAdmin.java
index 83878f8655e..a0489e13f8d 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/TestAdmin.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/TestAdmin.java
@@ -830,4 +830,35 @@ public class TestAdmin {
       this.admin.deleteTable(tableName);
     }
   }
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+  
+
+  /**
+   * For HBASE-2556
+   * @throws IOException
+   */  
+  @Test
+  public void testGetTableRegions() throws IOException {
+
+    byte[] tableName = Bytes.toBytes("testGetTableRegions");
+
+    int expectedRegions = 10;
+
+    // Use 80 bit numbers to make sure we aren't limited
+    byte [] startKey = { 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 };
+    byte [] endKey =   { 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 };
+
+
+    HTableDescriptor desc = new HTableDescriptor(tableName);
+    desc.addFamily(new HColumnDescriptor(HConstants.CATALOG_FAMILY));
+    admin = new HBaseAdmin(TEST_UTIL.getConfiguration());
+    admin.createTable(desc, startKey, endKey, expectedRegions);
+
+    List<HRegionInfo> RegionInfos = admin.getTableRegions(tableName);
+    
+    assertEquals("Tried to create " + expectedRegions + " regions " +
+        "but only found " + RegionInfos.size(),
+        expectedRegions, RegionInfos.size());
+    
+ }
+  
+}
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/TestThriftServer.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/TestThriftServer.java
index 84ba4c817e6..a38d5fa5013 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/TestThriftServer.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/thrift/TestThriftServer.java
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ public class TestThriftServer extends HBaseClusterTestCase {
     doTestTableMutations();
     doTestTableTimestampsAndColumns();
     doTestTableScanners();
+    doTestGetTableRegions();
   }
 
   /**
@@ -98,7 +99,8 @@ public class TestThriftServer extends HBaseClusterTestCase {
     handler.disableTable(tableAname);*/
     handler.deleteTable(tableAname);
   }
-
+  
+    
   /**
    * Tests adding a series of Mutations and BatchMutations, including a
    * delete mutation.  Also tests data retrieval, and getting back multiple
@@ -310,6 +312,27 @@ public class TestThriftServer extends HBaseClusterTestCase {
     handler.deleteTable(tableAname);
   }
 
+  
+  /**
+   * For HBASE-2556
+   * Tests for GetTableRegions
+   *
+   * @throws Exception
+   */
+  public void doTestGetTableRegions() throws Exception {
+    ThriftServer.HBaseHandler handler = new ThriftServer.HBaseHandler(this.conf);
+
+    handler.createTable(tableAname, getColumnDescriptors());
+    int RegionCount = handler.getTableRegions(tableAname).size();
+    assertEquals("empty table should have only 1 region, " +
+            "but found " + RegionCount, RegionCount, 1);
+    handler.disableTable(tableAname);    
+    handler.deleteTable(tableAname);
+    RegionCount = handler.getTableRegions(tableAname).size();
+    assertEquals("non-existing table should have 0 region, " +
+            "but found " + RegionCount, RegionCount, 0);    
+  } 
+  
   /**
    *
    * @return a List of ColumnDescriptors for use in creating a table.  Has one