diff --git a/django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py b/django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py
index 2255587a9e..b117b33aab 100644
--- a/django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py
+++ b/django/contrib/sitemaps/views.py
@@ -1,9 +1,10 @@
-from django.http import HttpResponse, Http404
-from django.template import loader
-from django.contrib.sites.models import get_current_site
 from django.core import urlresolvers
-from django.utils.encoding import smart_str
 from django.core.paginator import EmptyPage, PageNotAnInteger
+from django.http import HttpResponse, Http404
+from django.template.response import TemplateResponse
+from django.utils.encoding import smart_str
+
+from django.contrib.sites.models import get_current_site
 
 def index(request, sitemaps,
         template_name='sitemap_index.xml', mimetype='application/xml'):
@@ -21,8 +22,7 @@ def index(request, sitemaps,
         if pages > 1:
             for page in range(2, pages+1):
                 sites.append('%s://%s%s?p=%s' % (protocol, current_site.domain, sitemap_url, page))
-    xml = loader.render_to_string(template_name, {'sitemaps': sites})
-    return HttpResponse(xml, mimetype=mimetype)
+    return TemplateResponse(request, template_name, {'sitemaps': sites}, mimetype=mimetype)
 
 def sitemap(request, sitemaps, section=None,
         template_name='sitemap.xml', mimetype='application/xml'):
@@ -44,5 +44,4 @@ def sitemap(request, sitemaps, section=None,
             raise Http404("Page %s empty" % page)
         except PageNotAnInteger:
             raise Http404("No page '%s'" % page)
-    xml = smart_str(loader.render_to_string(template_name, {'urlset': urls}))
-    return HttpResponse(xml, mimetype=mimetype)
+    return TemplateResponse(request, template_name, {'urlset': urls}, mimetype=mimetype)
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/docs/ref/contrib/sitemaps.txt b/docs/ref/contrib/sitemaps.txt
index 6d8fe61f35..300c142f0b 100644
--- a/docs/ref/contrib/sitemaps.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/contrib/sitemaps.txt
@@ -313,6 +313,15 @@ parameter to the ``sitemap`` and ``index`` views via the URLconf::
         }),
     )
 
+
+.. versionchanged:: 1.4
+
+    In addition, these views also return
+    :class:`~django.template.response.TemplateResponse`
+    instances which allow you to easily customize the response data before
+    rendering. For more details, see the
+    :doc:`TemplateResponse documentation </ref/template-response>`.
+
 Context variables
 ------------------