diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 295def12bb3..7c7a911dc89 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -18,6 +18,13 @@ Major Changes:
    If you need the old behaviour, quote the value and it will get passed around as a string
  * added meta: refresh_inventory to force rereading the inventory in a play
  * vars are now settable at play, block, role and task level
+ * template code now retains types for bools, and Numbers instead of turning them into strings
+   If you need the old behaviour, quote the value and it will get passed around as a string. In the
+   case of nulls, the output used to be an empty string.
+ * Empty variables and variables set to null in yaml will no longer be converted to empty strings.
+   They will retain the value of `None`.  To go back to the old behaviour, you can override
+   the `null_representation` setting to an empty string in your config file or by setting the
+   `ANSIBLE_NULL_REPRESENTATION` environment variable.
 
 Deprecated Modules (new ones in parens):
   * ec2_ami_search (ec2_ami_find)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/constants.py b/lib/ansible/constants.py
index 290274c13e8..8cb3bcb2fb8 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/constants.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/constants.py
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ def mk_boolean(value):
     else:
         return False
 
-def get_config(p, section, key, env_var, default, boolean=False, integer=False, floating=False, islist=False):
+def get_config(p, section, key, env_var, default, boolean=False, integer=False, floating=False, islist=False, isnone=False):
     ''' return a configuration variable with casting '''
     value = _get_config(p, section, key, env_var, default)
     if boolean:
@@ -53,6 +53,9 @@ def get_config(p, section, key, env_var, default, boolean=False, integer=False,
         elif islist:
             if isinstance(value, string_types):
                 value = [x.strip() for x in value.split(',')]
+        elif isnone:
+            if value == "None":
+                value = None
         elif isinstance(value, string_types):
             value = unquote(value)
     return value
@@ -205,6 +208,7 @@ DEFAULT_LOAD_CALLBACK_PLUGINS  = get_config(p, DEFAULTS, 'bin_ansible_callbacks'
 DEFAULT_CALLBACK_WHITELIST     = get_config(p, DEFAULTS, 'callback_whitelist', 'ANSIBLE_CALLBACK_WHITELIST', [], islist=True)
 RETRY_FILES_ENABLED            = get_config(p, DEFAULTS, 'retry_files_enabled', 'ANSIBLE_RETRY_FILES_ENABLED', True, boolean=True)
 RETRY_FILES_SAVE_PATH          = get_config(p, DEFAULTS, 'retry_files_save_path', 'ANSIBLE_RETRY_FILES_SAVE_PATH', '~/')
+DEFAULT_NULL_REPRESENTATION    = get_config(p, DEFAULTS, 'null_representation', 'ANSIBLE_NULL_REPRESENTATION', None, isnone=True)
 
 # CONNECTION RELATED
 ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS               = get_config(p, 'ssh_connection', 'ssh_args', 'ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS', None)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/template/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/template/__init__.py
index c309e113adc..1a1465139ac 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/template/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/template/__init__.py
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ from ansible.template.vars import AnsibleJ2Vars
 from ansible.utils.debug import debug
 
 from numbers import Number
+from types import NoneType
 
 __all__ = ['Templar']
 
@@ -187,6 +188,8 @@ class Templar:
                             resolved_val = self._available_variables[var_name]
                             if isinstance(resolved_val, NON_TEMPLATED_TYPES):
                                 return resolved_val
+                            elif isinstance(resolved_val, NoneType):
+                                return C.DEFAULT_NULL_REPRESENTATION
 
                     result = self._do_template(variable, preserve_trailing_newlines=preserve_trailing_newlines, fail_on_undefined=fail_on_undefined, overrides=overrides)
 
diff --git a/test/integration/roles/test_template/files/foo.txt b/test/integration/roles/test_template/files/foo.txt
index edd704da048..58af3be81b9 100644
--- a/test/integration/roles/test_template/files/foo.txt
+++ b/test/integration/roles/test_template/files/foo.txt
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ templated_var_loaded
 {
     "bool": true, 
     "multi_part": "1Foo", 
+    "null_type": null, 
     "number": 5, 
     "string_num": "5"
 }
diff --git a/test/integration/roles/test_template/vars/main.yml b/test/integration/roles/test_template/vars/main.yml
index b79f95e6cf1..16776cb7e83 100644
--- a/test/integration/roles/test_template/vars/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/roles/test_template/vars/main.yml
@@ -5,10 +5,12 @@ string_num: "5"
 bool_var: true
 part_1: 1
 part_2: "Foo"
+null_type: !!null
 
 templated_dict:
   number: "{{ number_var }}"
   string_num: "{{ string_num }}"
+  null_type: "{{ null_type }}"
   bool: "{{ bool_var }}"
   multi_part: "{{ part_1 }}{{ part_2 }}"
 
diff --git a/v1/ansible/utils/template.py b/v1/ansible/utils/template.py
index fb35924ce14..368b2067c35 100644
--- a/v1/ansible/utils/template.py
+++ b/v1/ansible/utils/template.py
@@ -32,6 +32,7 @@ import pwd
 import ast
 import traceback
 from numbers import Number
+from types import NoneType
 
 from ansible.utils.string_functions import count_newlines_from_end
 from ansible.utils import to_bytes, to_unicode
@@ -343,7 +344,7 @@ def template_from_string(basedir, data, vars, fail_on_undefined=False):
                 var_name = only_one.group(1)
                 if var_name in vars:
                     resolved_val = vars[var_name]
-                    if isinstance(resolved_val, (bool, Number)):
+                    if isinstance(resolved_val, (bool, Number, NoneType)):
                         return resolved_val
 
         def my_finalize(thing):