diff --git a/OpenSim/ApplicationPlugins/RemoteController/RemoteAdminPlugin.cs b/OpenSim/ApplicationPlugins/RemoteController/RemoteAdminPlugin.cs
index 6f8ec43451..1490893314 100644
--- a/OpenSim/ApplicationPlugins/RemoteController/RemoteAdminPlugin.cs
+++ b/OpenSim/ApplicationPlugins/RemoteController/RemoteAdminPlugin.cs
@@ -378,6 +378,8 @@ namespace OpenSim.ApplicationPlugins.RemoteController
             XmlRpcResponse response = new XmlRpcResponse();
             Hashtable responseData = new Hashtable();
 
+            int m_regionLimit = m_config.GetInt("region_limit", 0);
+
             try {
                 Hashtable requestData = (Hashtable) request.Params[0];
 
@@ -392,6 +394,11 @@ namespace OpenSim.ApplicationPlugins.RemoteController
                 if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(requiredPassword) &&
                     (string)requestData["password"] != requiredPassword) throw new Exception("wrong password");
 
+                // check whether we still have space left (iff we are using limits)
+                if (m_regionLimit != 0 && m_app.SceneManager.Scenes.Count >= m_regionLimit)
+                    throw new Exception(String.Format("cannot instantiate new region, server capacity {0} already reached; delete regions first", m_regionLimit));
+
+
                 // extract or generate region ID now
                 Scene scene = null;
                 UUID regionID = UUID.Zero;
diff --git a/bin/OpenSim.ini.example b/bin/OpenSim.ini.example
index 8c9ee41c3a..369f940785 100644
--- a/bin/OpenSim.ini.example
+++ b/bin/OpenSim.ini.example
@@ -392,6 +392,12 @@ access_password = unknown
 
 region_file_template = "{0}x{1}-{2}.xml"
 
+; we can limit the number of regions that XmlRpcCreateRegion will
+;allow by setting this to a positive, non-0 number: as long as the
+;number of regions is below region_limits, XmlRpcCreateRegion will
+;succeed. setting region_limits to 0 disables the check.
+;region_limits = 0
+
 [RestPlugins]
 ; Change this to true to enable REST Plugins. This must be true if you wish to use
 ; REST Region or REST Asset and Inventory Plugins
@@ -472,7 +478,6 @@ msgformat = "PRIVMSG {0} : {3} - {1} of {2}"
 ; [XIRC]
 ; enabled = false
 
-
 ; Uncomment the following for experiment in world versioning
 ; support.  This is so experimental at this point that I'm not going
 ; to explain it further, you'll need to read the source code