diff --git a/docs/topics/db/multi-db.txt b/docs/topics/db/multi-db.txt
index 6b4f6a0a667..3092d8f3d28 100644
--- a/docs/topics/db/multi-db.txt
+++ b/docs/topics/db/multi-db.txt
@@ -255,6 +255,7 @@ with two read replicas. Here are the settings specifying these
 databases::
 
     DATABASES = {
+        'default': {},
         'auth_db': {
             'NAME': 'auth_db',
             'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',