diff --git a/distarray/__init__.py b/distarray/__init__.py
index b34e9a1f..49e26241 100644
--- a/distarray/__init__.py
+++ b/distarray/__init__.py
@@ -4,5 +4,5 @@
 #  Distributed under the terms of the BSD License.  See COPYING.rst.
 # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
-__version__ = "0.5.0-dev"
+from distarray.__version__ import __version__
 DISTARRAY_BASE_NAME = "__distarray__"
diff --git a/distarray/__version__.py b/distarray/__version__.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..e93c1260
--- /dev/null
+++ b/distarray/__version__.py
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+__short_version__ = "0.5"
+__version__ = "0.5.0-dev"
diff --git a/docs/source/conf.py b/docs/source/conf.py
index 95c7df35..ddfff97c 100644
--- a/docs/source/conf.py
+++ b/docs/source/conf.py
@@ -13,6 +13,11 @@
 
 import sys, os
 
+try:
+    from distarray.__version__ import __version__, __short_version__
+except ImportError:
+    __version__ = __short_version__ = "<unknown>"
+
 
 # Mock out difficult imports so readthedocs autodoc works
 import mock
@@ -69,9 +74,9 @@
 # built documents.
 #
 # The short X.Y version.
-version = '0.5'
+version = __short_version__
 # The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
-release = '0.5.0-dev'
+release = __version__
 
 # The language for content autogenerated by Sphinx. Refer to documentation
 # for a list of supported languages.
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index df137c22..42d64925 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
+from distarray.__version__ import __version__
 
 
 def parse_readme(filename='README.rst', sentinel="README"):
@@ -32,7 +33,7 @@ def parse_readme(filename='README.rst', sentinel="README"):
 
     metadata = {
         'name': 'distarray',
-        'version': '0.5.0-dev',
+        'version': __version__,
         'description': 'Distributed Memory Arrays for Python',
         'keywords': 'parallel mpi distributed array',
         'license': 'New BSD',