Is it possible to get the region count of a table via an API?

[Pavan Sudheendra]

Hi all,
I know what we can go over to the HBase UI and make a split on our table so
that it will be distributed over the cluster.. Is there a way to know it
via an API and to possibly change it? This is to know how many map tasks
run on our table before we actually run the MR job..
-- 
Regards-
Pavan