System and methods for managing versions of partition maps in a distributed data store are disclosed. A relational database may use partition maps to indicate the location of data in a particular partition, or in a replica thereof. These partition maps may be versioned using a two-stage mechanism in which partition map updates are communicated to all nodes, or to affected nodes only, and in which operation may continue without waiting for acknowledgment of their application to each node. The system may handle minor partition changes differently than major partition changes. For example, if a replica of a partition is promoted to be a primary copy due to hardware or network failures, partition map changes may only be propagated to nodes in the same replica group. For major partition changes (e.g., splits, moves, mergers, added partitions, or size change), a new partition map may be made available to all nodes.