diff --git a/django/core/db/__init__.py b/django/core/db/__init__.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 5883acefdd..0000000000
--- a/django/core/db/__init__.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,42 +0,0 @@
-"""
-This is the core database connection.
-
-All Django code assumes database SELECT statements cast the resulting values as such:
-    * booleans are mapped to Python booleans
-    * dates are mapped to Python datetime.date objects
-    * times are mapped to Python datetime.time objects
-    * timestamps are mapped to Python datetime.datetime objects
-"""
-
-from django.conf.settings import DATABASE_ENGINE
-
-try:
-    dbmod = __import__('django.core.db.backends.%s' % DATABASE_ENGINE, '', '', [''])
-except ImportError, exc:
-    # The database backend wasn't found. Display a helpful error message
-    # listing all possible database backends.
-    from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
-    import os
-    backend_dir = os.path.join(__path__[0], 'backends')
-    available_backends = [f[:-3] for f in os.listdir(backend_dir) if f.endswith('.py') and not f.startswith('__init__')]
-    available_backends.sort()
-    raise ImproperlyConfigured, "Could not load database backend: %s. Is your DATABASE_ENGINE setting (currently, %r) spelled correctly? Available options are: %s" % \
-        (exc, DATABASE_ENGINE, ", ".join(map(repr, available_backends)))
-
-DatabaseError = dbmod.DatabaseError
-db = dbmod.DatabaseWrapper()
-dictfetchone = dbmod.dictfetchone
-dictfetchmany = dbmod.dictfetchmany
-dictfetchall = dbmod.dictfetchall
-dictfetchall = dbmod.dictfetchall
-get_last_insert_id = dbmod.get_last_insert_id
-get_date_extract_sql = dbmod.get_date_extract_sql
-get_date_trunc_sql = dbmod.get_date_trunc_sql
-get_limit_offset_sql = dbmod.get_limit_offset_sql
-get_random_function_sql = dbmod.get_random_function_sql
-get_table_list = dbmod.get_table_list
-get_table_description = dbmod.get_table_description
-get_relations = dbmod.get_relations
-OPERATOR_MAPPING = dbmod.OPERATOR_MAPPING
-DATA_TYPES = dbmod.DATA_TYPES
-DATA_TYPES_REVERSE = dbmod.DATA_TYPES_REVERSE
diff --git a/django/db/__init__.py b/django/db/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..fde0745659
--- /dev/null
+++ b/django/db/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+from django.conf.settings import DATABASE_ENGINE
+
+__all__ = ('backend', 'connection', 'DatabaseError')
+
+try:
+    backend = __import__('django.db.backends.%s.base' % DATABASE_ENGINE, '', '', [''])
+except ImportError, e:
+    # The database backend wasn't found. Display a helpful error message
+    # listing all possible database backends.
+    from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
+    import os
+    backend_dir = os.path.join(__path__[0], 'backends')
+    available_backends = [f[:-3] for f in os.listdir(backend_dir) if not f.startswith('_')]
+    available_backends.sort()
+    raise ImproperlyConfigured, "Could not load database backend: %s. Is your DATABASE_ENGINE setting (currently, %r) spelled correctly? Available options are: %s" % \
+        (e, DATABASE_ENGINE, ", ".join(map(repr, available_backends)))
+
+connection = backend.DatabaseWrapper()
+DatabaseError = dbmod.DatabaseError