cannot import name patterns

You don't need those imports. The only thing you need in your urls.py (to start) is:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *

# This two if you want to enable the Django Admin: (recommended)
from django.contrib import admin
admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    # ... your url patterns
)

NOTE: This solution was intended for Django <1.6. This was actually the code generated by Django itself. For newer version, see Jacob Hume's answer.

As of Django 1.10, the patterns module has been removed (it had been deprecated since 1.8).

Luckily, it should be a simple edit to remove the offending code, since the urlpatterns should now be stored in a plain-old list:

urlpatterns = [
    url(r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),
    # ... your url patterns
]

Yes:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import ... # is for django 1.3
from django.conf.urls  import ...         # is for django 1.4

I met this problem too.