diff --git a/src/main/java/com/google/maps/GeoApiContext.java b/src/main/java/com/google/maps/GeoApiContext.java
index e7561b641..222dacdff 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/google/maps/GeoApiContext.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/google/maps/GeoApiContext.java
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@
 import com.google.maps.metrics.NoOpRequestMetricsReporter;
 import com.google.maps.metrics.RequestMetrics;
 import com.google.maps.metrics.RequestMetricsReporter;
+import java.io.Closeable;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
 import java.net.Proxy;
 import java.net.URLEncoder;
@@ -51,7 +53,7 @@
  * <p>When you are finished with a GeoApiContext object, you must call {@link #shutdown()} on it to
  * release its resources.
  */
-public class GeoApiContext {
+public class GeoApiContext implements Closeable {
 
   private static final String VERSION = "@VERSION@"; // Populated by the build script
   private static final String USER_AGENT = "GoogleGeoApiClientJava/" + VERSION;
@@ -95,6 +97,16 @@ public class GeoApiContext {
     setExperienceId(experienceIdHeaderValue);
   }
 
+  /**
+   * standard Java API to reclaim resources
+   *
+   * @throws IOException
+   */
+  @Override
+  public void close() throws IOException {
+    shutdown();
+  }
+
   /**
    * The service provider interface that enables requests to be handled via switchable back ends.
    * There are supplied implementations of this interface for both OkHttp and Google App Engine's