Index: django/contrib/sitemaps/__init__.py
===================================================================
--- django/contrib/sitemaps/__init__.py	(revision 7937)
+++ django/contrib/sitemaps/__init__.py	(working copy)
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-from django.core import urlresolvers
+from django.core import urlresolvers, paginator
 import urllib
 
 PING_URL = "http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping"
@@ -34,6 +34,8 @@
     urllib.urlopen("%s?%s" % (ping_url, params))
 
 class Sitemap:
+    limit = 50000
+    
     def __get(self, name, obj, default=None):
         try:
             attr = getattr(self, name)
@@ -48,12 +50,18 @@
 
     def location(self, obj):
         return obj.get_absolute_url()
-
-    def get_urls(self):
+    
+    def _get_paginator(self):
+        if not hasattr(self, "paginator"):
+            self.paginator = paginator.Paginator(self.items(), self.limit)
+        return self.paginator
+    paginator = property(_get_paginator)
+    
+    def get_urls(self, page=1):
         from django.contrib.sites.models import Site
         current_site = Site.objects.get_current()
         urls = []
-        for item in self.items():
+        for item in self.paginator.page(page).object_list:
             loc = "http://%s%s" % (current_site.domain, self.__get('location', item))
             url_info = {
                 'location':   loc,
Index: django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py
===================================================================
--- django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py	(revision 7937)
+++ django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py	(working copy)
@@ -3,14 +3,22 @@
 from django.contrib.sites.models import Site
 from django.core import urlresolvers
 from django.utils.encoding import smart_str
+from django.core.paginator import EmptyPage, PageNotAnInteger
 
 def index(request, sitemaps):
     current_site = Site.objects.get_current()
     sites = []
     protocol = request.is_secure() and 'https' or 'http'
-    for section in sitemaps.keys():
+    for section, site in sitemaps.items():
+        if callable(site):
+            pages = site().paginator.num_pages
+        else:
+            pages = site.paginator.num_pages
         sitemap_url = urlresolvers.reverse('django.contrib.sitemaps.views.sitemap', kwargs={'section': section})
         sites.append('%s://%s%s' % (protocol, current_site.domain, sitemap_url))
+        if pages > 1:
+            for page in range(2, pages):
+                sites.append('%s://%s%s?p=%s' % (protocol, current_site.domain, sitemap_url, page))
     xml = loader.render_to_string('sitemap_index.xml', {'sitemaps': sites})
     return HttpResponse(xml, mimetype='application/xml')
 
@@ -22,10 +30,16 @@
         maps.append(sitemaps[section])
     else:
         maps = sitemaps.values()
+    page = request.GET.get("p", 1)
     for site in maps:
-        if callable(site):
-            urls.extend(site().get_urls())
-        else:
-            urls.extend(site.get_urls())
+        try:
+            if callable(site):
+                urls.extend(site().get_urls(page))
+            else:
+                urls.extend(site.get_urls(page))
+        except EmptyPage:
+            raise Http404("Page %s empty" % page)
+        except PageNotAnInteger:
+            raise Http404("No page '%s'" % page)
     xml = smart_str(loader.render_to_string('sitemap.xml', {'urlset': urls}))
     return HttpResponse(xml, mimetype='application/xml')
Index: docs/sitemaps.txt
===================================================================
--- docs/sitemaps.txt	(revision 7937)
+++ docs/sitemaps.txt	(working copy)
@@ -282,6 +282,10 @@
 both ``sitemap-flatpages.xml`` and ``sitemap-blog.xml``. The ``Sitemap``
 classes and the ``sitemaps`` dict don't change at all.
 
+If one of your sitemaps is going to have more than 50,000 URLs you should 
+create an index file. Your sitemap will get paginated and the index will 
+reflect that.
+
 Pinging Google
 ==============