diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 96a993fec..01bdaa251 100755
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -19,6 +19,8 @@ $Source$
     * libraries/display_select_lang.lib.php, libraries/select_lang.lib.php:
       Show native names of languages (RFE #1342726).
     * libraries/auth/cookie.auth.lib.php: Try to load mcrypt extension.
+    * Documentation.html, config.default.php, libraries/common.lib.php:
+      Configurable default connection collation (RFE #1025969).
 
 2005-11-20 Sebastian Mendel <cybot_tm@users.sourceforge.net>
     * added test/theme.php: for testing themes
diff --git a/Documentation.html b/Documentation.html
index 3c7c2f960..dffd1b96d 100755
--- a/Documentation.html
+++ b/Documentation.html
@@ -1314,6 +1314,14 @@ GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON &lt;pma_db&gt;.* TO 'pma'@'localhost';
         this setting.
     </dd>
 
+    <dt><b>$cfg['DefaultConnectionCollation'] </b>string</dt>
+    <dd>
+        Defines the default connection collation to use, if not
+        user-defined.<br />
+        See the <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/charset-charsets.html">MySQL
+        documentation</a> for list of possible values.    
+    </dd>
+
     <dt><b>$cfg['Lang'] </b>string</dt>
     <dd>
         Force: always use this language (must be defined in the
diff --git a/config.default.php b/config.default.php
index c53abb58a..38a85ee06 100644
--- a/config.default.php
+++ b/config.default.php
@@ -362,6 +362,9 @@ $cfg['PDFDefaultPageSize']  = 'A4';
 // Default language to use, if not browser-defined or user-defined
 $cfg['DefaultLang'] = 'en-iso-8859-1';
 
+// Default connection collation (used for MySQL >= 4.1)
+$cfg['DefaultConnectionCollation'] = 'utf8_unicode_ci';
+
 // Force: always use this language - must be defined in
 //        libraries/select_lang.lib.php
 // $cfg['Lang']     = 'en-iso-8859-1';
diff --git a/libraries/common.lib.php b/libraries/common.lib.php
index f18d8dfc8..f5c23418d 100644
--- a/libraries/common.lib.php
+++ b/libraries/common.lib.php
@@ -404,7 +404,9 @@ if (!is_dir($pmaThemeImage)) {
 if (isset($_COOKIE) && !empty($_COOKIE['pma_collation_connection']) && empty($_POST['collation_connection'])) {
     $collation_connection = $_COOKIE['pma_collation_connection'];
 }
-
+if (!isset($collation_connection)) {
+    $collation_connection = $GLOBALS['cfg']['DefaultConnectionCollation'];
+}
 
 if ( ! defined( 'PMA_MINIMUM_COMMON' ) ) {
     /**