diff --git a/django/db/backends/postgresql/base.py b/django/db/backends/postgresql/base.py
index ea19f65839..e2051beaa2 100644
--- a/django/db/backends/postgresql/base.py
+++ b/django/db/backends/postgresql/base.py
@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ Requires psycopg 1: http://initd.org/projects/psycopg1
 
 from django.utils.encoding import smart_str, smart_unicode
 from django.db.backends import util
-from django.db.backends.postgresql.encodings import ENCODING_MAP
 try:
     import psycopg as Database
 except ImportError, e:
@@ -64,7 +63,6 @@ class UnicodeCursorWrapper(object):
             return getattr(self.cursor, attr)
 
 postgres_version = None
-client_encoding = None
 
 class DatabaseWrapper(local):
     def __init__(self, **kwargs):
@@ -94,15 +92,8 @@ class DatabaseWrapper(local):
         cursor = self.connection.cursor()
         if set_tz:
             cursor.execute("SET TIME ZONE %s", [settings.TIME_ZONE])
-        cursor.execute("SHOW client_encoding")
-        encoding = ENCODING_MAP[cursor.fetchone()[0]]
-        cursor = UnicodeCursorWrapper(cursor, encoding)
-        global client_encoding
-        if not client_encoding:
-            # We assume the client encoding isn't going to change for random
-            # reasons.
-            Database.register_type(Database.new_type(Database.types[1043].values, 'STRING', typecast_string))
-            client_encoding = encoding
+        cursor.execute("SET client_encoding to 'UNICODE'")
+        cursor = UnicodeCursorWrapper(cursor, 'utf-8')
         global postgres_version
         if not postgres_version:
             cursor.execute("SELECT version()")
@@ -289,7 +280,7 @@ def typecast_string(s):
     """
     if not s:
         return s
-    return smart_unicode(s, client_encoding)
+    return smart_unicode(s)
 
 # Register these custom typecasts, because Django expects dates/times to be
 # in Python's native (standard-library) datetime/time format, whereas psycopg
@@ -302,6 +293,7 @@ Database.register_type(Database.new_type((1083,1266), "TIME", util.typecast_time
 Database.register_type(Database.new_type((1114,1184), "TIMESTAMP", util.typecast_timestamp))
 Database.register_type(Database.new_type((16,), "BOOLEAN", util.typecast_boolean))
 Database.register_type(Database.new_type((1700,), "NUMERIC", util.typecast_decimal))
+Database.register_type(Database.new_type(Database.types[1043].values, 'STRING', typecast_string))
 
 OPERATOR_MAPPING = {
     'exact': '= %s',
diff --git a/django/db/backends/postgresql/encodings.py b/django/db/backends/postgresql/encodings.py
deleted file mode 100644
index 934cc6e6de..0000000000
--- a/django/db/backends/postgresql/encodings.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,48 +0,0 @@
-# Mapping between PostgreSQL encodings and Python codec names. This mapping
-# doesn't exist in psycopg, so we have to maintain it by hand (using
-# information from section 21.2.1 in the PostgreSQL manual).
-ENCODING_MAP = {
-    "ALT": 'cp866',
-    "BIG5": 'big5-tw',
-    "EUC_CN": 'gb2312',
-    "EUC_JP": 'euc_jp',
-    "EUC_KR": 'euc_kr',
-    "GB18030": 'gb18030',
-    "GBK": 'gbk',
-    "ISO_8859_5": 'iso8859_5',
-    "ISO_8859_6": 'iso8859_6',
-    "ISO_8859_7": 'iso8859_7',
-    "ISO_8859_8": 'iso8859_8',
-    "JOHAB": 'johab',
-    "KOI8": 'koi18_r',
-    "KOI18R": 'koi18_r',
-    "LATIN1": 'latin_1',
-    "LATIN2": 'iso8859_2',
-    "LATIN3": 'iso8859_3',
-    "LATIN4": 'iso8859_4',
-    "LATIN5": 'iso8859_9',
-    "LATIN6": 'iso8859_10',
-    "LATIN7": 'iso8859_13',
-    "LATIN8": 'iso8859_14',
-    "LATIN9": 'iso8859_15',
-    "SJIS": 'shift_jis',
-    "SQL_ASCII": 'ascii',
-    "TCVN": 'cp1258',
-    "UHC": 'cp949',
-    "UNICODE": 'utf-8',
-    "UTF8": 'utf-8',
-    "WIN": 'cp1251',
-    "WIN866": 'cp866',
-    "WIN874": 'cp874',
-    "WIN1250": 'cp1250',
-    "WIN1251": 'cp1251',
-    "WIN1252": 'cp1252',
-    "WIN1256": 'cp1256',
-    "WIN1258": 'cp1258',
-
-    # Unsupported (no equivalents in codecs module):
-    # EUC_TW
-    # LATIN10
-    # MULE_INTERNAL
-}
-