diff --git a/django/http/__init__.py b/django/http/__init__.py
index 0124022478..bbbd1ba99a 100644
--- a/django/http/__init__.py
+++ b/django/http/__init__.py
@@ -128,6 +128,11 @@ class QueryDict(MultiValueDict):
     Values retrieved from this class are converted from the given encoding
     (DEFAULT_CHARSET by default) to unicode.
     """
+    # These are both reset in __init__, but is specified here at the class
+    # level so that unpickling will have valid values
+    _mutable = True
+    _encoding = None
+
     def __init__(self, query_string, mutable=False, encoding=None):
         MultiValueDict.__init__(self)
         if not encoding:
@@ -136,12 +141,24 @@ class QueryDict(MultiValueDict):
             from django.conf import settings
             encoding = settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET
         self.encoding = encoding
-        self._mutable = True
         for key, value in parse_qsl((query_string or ''), True): # keep_blank_values=True
             self.appendlist(force_unicode(key, encoding, errors='replace'),
                             force_unicode(value, encoding, errors='replace'))
         self._mutable = mutable
 
+    def _get_encoding(self):
+        if self._encoding is None:
+            # *Important*: do not import settings at the module level because
+            # of the note in core.handlers.modpython.
+            from django.conf import settings
+            self._encoding = settings.DEFAULT_CHARSET
+        return self._encoding
+
+    def _set_encoding(self, value):
+        self._encoding = value
+
+    encoding = property(_get_encoding, _set_encoding)
+
     def _assert_mutable(self):
         if not self._mutable:
             raise AttributeError("This QueryDict instance is immutable")
diff --git a/tests/regressiontests/httpwrappers/tests.py b/tests/regressiontests/httpwrappers/tests.py
index 31b956a99d..5e42ff3b63 100644
--- a/tests/regressiontests/httpwrappers/tests.py
+++ b/tests/regressiontests/httpwrappers/tests.py
@@ -392,17 +392,26 @@ u'\ufffd'
 [u'bar', u'\ufffd']
 
 
-###################################### 
-# HttpResponse with Unicode headers  # 
-###################################### 
- 
->>> r = HttpResponse() 
- 
+########################
+# Pickling a QueryDict #
+########################
+>>> import pickle
+>>> q = QueryDict('a=b&c=d')
+>>> q1 = pickle.loads(pickle.dumps(q))
+>>> q == q1
+True
+
+######################################
+# HttpResponse with Unicode headers  #
+######################################
+
+>>> r = HttpResponse()
+
 If we insert a unicode value it will be converted to an ascii
 string. This makes sure we comply with the HTTP specifications.
- 
->>> r['value'] = u'test value' 
->>> isinstance(r['value'], str) 
+
+>>> r['value'] = u'test value'
+>>> isinstance(r['value'], str)
 True
 
 An error is raised When a unicode object with non-ascii is assigned.
@@ -411,10 +420,10 @@ An error is raised When a unicode object with non-ascii is assigned.
 Traceback (most recent call last):
 ...
 UnicodeEncodeError: ..., HTTP response headers must be in US-ASCII format
- 
-The response also converts unicode keys to strings. 
- 
->>> r[u'test'] = 'testing key' 
+
+The response also converts unicode keys to strings.
+
+>>> r[u'test'] = 'testing key'
 >>> l = list(r.items())
 >>> l.sort()
 >>> l[1]
@@ -426,7 +435,7 @@ It will also raise errors for keys with non-ascii data.
 Traceback (most recent call last):
 ...
 UnicodeEncodeError: ..., HTTP response headers must be in US-ASCII format
- 
+
 """
 
 from django.http import QueryDict, HttpResponse