django manage.py raising ImproperlyConfigured error - django

Question

In attempting to run ./manage.py runserver or shell or any other command for that matter, I'm getting the error: You must define a 'default' database.
I'm running this in a virtualenv and settings.py includes DATABASE_NAME, along with Host, Port and Engine. Where is django expecting definition of the default database?
Here's the traceback:
(env)fox-ser01:common wmfox3$ ./manage.py shell
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./manage.py", line 31, in <module>
execute_manager(settings)
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 442, in execute_manager
utility.execute()
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv
self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 220, in execute
output = self.handle(*args, **options)
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 351, in handle
return self.handle_noargs(**options)
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/commands/shell.py", line 46, in handle_noargs
from django.db.models.loading import get_models
File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/db/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
raise ImproperlyConfigured("You must define a '%s' database" % DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: You must define a 'default' database

Answer 1

DATABASE_NAME is deprecated since django 1.2 so if you're using newer version, you should use the new way of defining databases:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': 'mydatabase'
}
}

Answer 2

define db name is settings.py
DATABASE
Below is an example
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'mysql',
'NAME': 'xyz', # db name
'USER': 'root',
'PASSWORD': 'password',
'HOST': '',
'PORT': '',
}
}

Answer 3

In settings.DATABASES.