diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index e37e7b576f..a95c64b6f5 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Core Changes:
 
 Language Improvements:
 
+- (markdown) much improved code block support (#2382) [Josh Goebel][]
 - (markdown) improve bold/italic nesting (#2382) [Josh Goebel][]
 - (fortran) Add Fortran 2018 keywords and coarray intrinsics (#2361) [Sam Miller][]
 - (delphi) highlight hexadecimal, octal, and binary numbers (#2370) [Robert Riebisch]()
diff --git a/src/languages/markdown.js b/src/languages/markdown.js
index ea02ee98e6..6d643bdee6 100644
--- a/src/languages/markdown.js
+++ b/src/languages/markdown.js
@@ -18,14 +18,20 @@ function(hljs) {
   CODE = {
     className: 'code',
     variants: [
+      // TODO: fix to allow these to work with sublanguage also
+      { begin: '(`{3,})(.|\\n)*?\\1`*[ ]*', },
+      { begin: '(~{3,})(.|\\n)*?\\1~*[ ]*', },
+      // needed to allow markdown as a sublanguage to work
+      { begin: '```\\w*\\s*$', end: '```+[ ]*$' },
+      { begin: '~~~\\w*\\s*$', end: '~~~+[ ]*$' },
+      { begin: '`.+?`' },
       {
-        begin: '^```\\w*\\s*$', end: '^```[ ]*$'
-      },
-      {
-        begin: '`.+?`'
-      },
-      {
-        begin: '^( {4}|\\t)', end: '$',
+        begin: '(?=^( {4}|\\t))',
+        // use contains to gobble up multiple lines to allow the block to be whatever size
+        // but only have a single open/close tag vs one per line
+        contains: [
+          { begin: '^( {4}|\\t)', end: '(\\n)$' }
+        ],
         relevance: 0
       }
     ]
diff --git a/test/markup/markdown/code.expect.txt b/test/markup/markdown/code.expect.txt
index 881ec4420e..c50bd78a60 100644
--- a/test/markup/markdown/code.expect.txt
+++ b/test/markup/markdown/code.expect.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,38 @@
-<span class="hljs-code">    var code = true;</span>
-
+<span class="hljs-code">    var code = true;
+    var code = false;
+</span>
 
 <span class="hljs-code">```javascript
 var code = true;
 ```</span>
 
+<span class="hljs-code">````md
+```
+a = 'This is a code block in python'
+```
+````</span>
+
+<span class="hljs-code">~~~
+tilde can be used also (github)
+~~~</span>
+
+<span class="hljs-code">~~~~    ruby startline=3 $%@#$
+def foo(x)
+  return 3
+end
+~~~~~~~</span>
+
+<span class="hljs-code">~~~~~~~something
+code  here
+~~~~~~~</span>
+
+<span class="hljs-code">```
+aaa
+~~~
+```</span>
+
+  <span class="hljs-code">```javascript
+  can be indented
+  ```</span>
+
 Inline <span class="hljs-code">`code`</span>, and <span class="hljs-code">`more code`</span>.
diff --git a/test/markup/markdown/code.txt b/test/markup/markdown/code.txt
index d9bed99184..e095534bc0 100644
--- a/test/markup/markdown/code.txt
+++ b/test/markup/markdown/code.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,38 @@
     var code = true;
+    var code = false;
 
 
 ```javascript
 var code = true;
 ```
 
+````md
+```
+a = 'This is a code block in python'
+```
+````
+
+~~~
+tilde can be used also (github)
+~~~
+
+~~~~    ruby startline=3 $%@#$
+def foo(x)
+  return 3
+end
+~~~~~~~
+
+~~~~~~~something
+code  here
+~~~~~~~
+
+```
+aaa
+~~~
+```
+
+  ```javascript
+  can be indented
+  ```
+
 Inline `code`, and `more code`.