diff --git a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/ParallelUnionRDD.scala b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/ParallelUnionRDD.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..dacc6fa546e17
--- /dev/null
+++ b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/ParallelUnionRDD.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+package org.apache.spark.sql.hive
+
+import java.util.concurrent.Callable
+
+import scala.reflect.ClassTag
+
+import org.apache.spark.{Partition, SparkContext}
+import org.apache.spark.rdd.{RDD, UnionPartition, UnionRDD}
+import org.apache.spark.util.ThreadUtils
+
+private[hive] object ParallelUnionRDD {
+  lazy val executorService = ThreadUtils.newDaemonFixedThreadPool(16, "ParallelUnionRDD")
+}
+
+private[hive] class ParallelUnionRDD[T: ClassTag](
+  sc: SparkContext,
+  rdds: Seq[RDD[T]]) extends UnionRDD[T](sc, rdds){
+
+  override def getPartitions: Array[Partition] = {
+    // Calc partitions field for each RDD in parallel.
+    val rddPartitions = rdds.map {rdd =>
+      (rdd, ParallelUnionRDD.executorService.submit(new Callable[Array[Partition]] {
+        override def call(): Array[Partition] = rdd.partitions
+      }))
+    }.map { case(r, f) => (r, f.get()) }
+
+    val array = new Array[Partition](rddPartitions.map(_._2.length).sum)
+    var pos = 0
+    for (((rdd, partitions), rddIndex) <- rddPartitions.zipWithIndex; split <- partitions) {
+      array(pos) = new UnionPartition(pos, rdd, rddIndex, split.index)
+      pos += 1
+    }
+    array
+  }
+
+}
diff --git a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/TableReader.scala b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/TableReader.scala
index fd465e80a87e5..8cb5dd4d9d09c 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/TableReader.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/TableReader.scala
@@ -246,7 +246,7 @@ class HadoopTableReader(
     if (hivePartitionRDDs.size == 0) {
       new EmptyRDD[InternalRow](sc.sparkContext)
     } else {
-      new UnionRDD(hivePartitionRDDs(0).context, hivePartitionRDDs)
+      new ParallelUnionRDD(hivePartitionRDDs(0).context, hivePartitionRDDs)
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveTableScanSuite.scala b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveTableScanSuite.scala
index b0c0dcbe5c25c..a67c22747efd0 100644
--- a/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveTableScanSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/hive/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/hive/execution/HiveTableScanSuite.scala
@@ -89,4 +89,24 @@ class HiveTableScanSuite extends HiveComparisonTest {
     assert(sql("select CaseSensitiveColName from spark_4959_2").head() === Row("hi"))
     assert(sql("select casesensitivecolname from spark_4959_2").head() === Row("hi"))
   }
+
+  test("Spark-11517: calc partitions in parallel") {
+    val partitionNum = 500
+    val partitionTable = "combine"
+    sql("set hive.exec.dynamic.partition.mode=nonstrict")
+    val df = (1 to 500).map { i => (i, i)}.toDF("a", "b").coalesce(500)
+    df.registerTempTable("temp")
+    sql(s"""create table $partitionTable (a int, b string)
+            |partitioned by (c int)
+            |stored as orc""".stripMargin)
+    sql(
+      s"""insert into table $partitionTable partition(c)
+          |select a, b, (b % $partitionNum) as c from temp""".stripMargin)
+
+    // Ensure that the result is the same as the original
+    assert(
+      sql( s"""select * from $partitionTable order by a""").collect().map(_.toString()).deep
+        ==  (1 to 500).map{i => s"[$i,$i,${i % partitionNum}]"}.toArray.deep
+    )
+  }
 }