Supported Locales

The set of supported locales varies between different implementations of the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) as well as between different areas of functionality.

This page documents locale support in Oracle's Java SE Development Kit 7 (JDK) and Java SE Runtime Environment 7 (JRE).

Enabled Locales for java.util and java.text Functionality
Enabled Writing Systems for Java Foundation Classes
User Interface Translation

Oracle's Java SE Runtime Environment 7 for Windows may be installed as a complete international version or as a European languages version. The JRE installer by default installs a European languages version if it recognizes that the host operating system only supports European languages. If the installer recognizes that any other language is needed, or if the user requests support for non-European languages in a customized installation, a complete international version is installed. The JRE for Solaris and Linux and the JDK for any platform are always installed as complete international versions.

Enabled Locales for java.util and java.text Functionality

The support for locale-sensitive behavior in the java.util and java.text packages is almost entirely platform independent, so all locales are supported in the same way and simultaneously, independent of the host operating system and its localization. The only platform dependent functionality is the setting of the initial default locale and the initial default time zone based on the host operating system's locale and time zone.

Oracle's Java SE Development Kit 7 and the international versions of the Java SE Runtime Environment 7 support all locales shown below. The European languages version of the Java SE Runtime Environment 7 supports all locales for the following languages: Albanian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian (Cyrillic), Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.

Supported Locales

Language	Country	Locale ID
Albanian	Albania	sq_AL
Arabic	Algeria	ar_DZ
Arabic	Bahrain	ar_BH
Arabic	Egypt	ar_EG
Arabic	Iraq	ar_IQ
Arabic	Jordan	ar_JO
Arabic	Kuwait	ar_KW
Arabic	Lebanon	ar_LB
Arabic	Libya	ar_LY
Arabic	Morocco	ar_MA
Arabic	Oman	ar_OM
Arabic	Qatar	ar_QA
Arabic	Saudi Arabia	ar_SA
Arabic	Sudan	ar_SD
Arabic	Syria	ar_SY
Arabic	Tunisia	ar_TN
Arabic	United Arab Emirates	ar_AE
Arabic	Yemen	ar_YE
Belarusian	Belarus	be_BY
Bulgarian	Bulgaria	bg_BG
Catalan	Spain	ca_ES
Chinese (Simplified)	China	zh_CN
Chinese (Simplified)	Singapore	zh_SG^(*)
Chinese (Traditional)	Hong Kong	zh_HK
Chinese (Traditional)	Taiwan	zh_TW
Croatian	Croatia	hr_HR
Czech	Czech Republic	cs_CZ
Danish	Denmark	da_DK
Dutch	Belgium	nl_BE
Dutch	Netherlands	nl_NL
English	Australia	en_AU
English	Canada	en_CA
English	India	en_IN
English	Ireland	en_IE
English	Malta	en_MT^(*)
English	New Zealand	en_NZ
English	Philippines	en_PH^(*)
English	Singapore	en_SG^(*)
English	South Africa	en_ZA
English	United Kingdom	en_GB
English	United States	en_US
Estonian	Estonia	et_EE
Finnish	Finland	fi_FI
French	Belgium	fr_BE
French	Canada	fr_CA
French	France	fr_FR
French	Luxembourg	fr_LU
French	Switzerland	fr_CH
German	Austria	de_AT
German	Germany	de_DE
German	Luxembourg	de_LU
German	Switzerland	de_CH
Greek	Cyprus	el_CY^(*)
Greek	Greece	el_GR
Hebrew	Israel	iw_IL
Hindi	India	hi_IN
Hungarian	Hungary	hu_HU
Icelandic	Iceland	is_IS
Indonesian	Indonesia	in_ID^(*)
Irish	Ireland	ga_IE^(*)
Italian	Italy	it_IT
Italian	Switzerland	it_CH
Japanese (Gregorian calendar)	Japan	ja_JP
Japanese (Imperial calendar)	Japan	ja_JP_JP
Korean	South Korea	ko_KR
Latvian	Latvia	lv_LV
Lithuanian	Lithuania	lt_LT
Macedonian	Macedonia	mk_MK
Malay	Malaysia	ms_MY^(*)
Maltese	Malta	mt_MT^(*)
Norwegian (Bokmål)	Norway	no_NO
Norwegian (Nynorsk)	Norway	no_NO_NY
Polish	Poland	pl_PL
Portuguese	Brazil	pt_BR^(*)
Portuguese	Portugal	pt_PT^(*)
Romanian	Romania	ro_RO
Russian	Russia	ru_RU
Serbian (Cyrillic)	Bosnia and Herzegovina	sr_BA^(*)
Serbian (Cyrillic)	Montenegro	sr_ME^(*)
Serbian (Cyrillic)	Serbia	sr_RS^(*)
Slovak	Slovakia	sk_SK
Slovenian	Slovenia	sl_SI
Spanish	Argentina	es_AR
Spanish	Bolivia	es_BO
Spanish	Chile	es_CL
Spanish	Colombia	es_CO
Spanish	Costa Rica	es_CR
Spanish	Dominican Republic	es_DO
Spanish	Ecuador	es_EC
Spanish	El Salvador	es_SV
Spanish	Guatemala	es_GT
Spanish	Honduras	es_HN
Spanish	Mexico	es_MX
Spanish	Nicaragua	es_NI
Spanish	Panama	es_PA
Spanish	Paraguay	es_PY
Spanish	Peru	es_PE
Spanish	Puerto Rico	es_PR
Spanish	Spain	es_ES
Spanish	United States	es_US^(*)
Spanish	Uruguay	es_UY
Spanish	Venezuela	es_VE
Swedish	Sweden	sv_SE
Thai (Western digits)	Thailand	th_TH
Thai (Thai digits)	Thailand	th_TH_TH
Turkish	Turkey	tr_TR
Ukrainian	Ukraine	uk_UA
Vietnamese	Vietnam	vi_VN

(*) Data for these locales are derived from the Unicode Consortium's Common Locale Data Repository release 1.4.1 on an "AS-IS" basis.

Enabled Writing Systems for Java Foundation Classes

Overview

For the Java Foundation Classes (AWT, Swing, 2D, input method framework, drag and drop), locales can generally be characterized by just the writing system; there are no country or language specific distinctions. Writing system support in the JFC depends to some extent on the host operating system, and full support for simultaneous use of multiple languages is not always possible.

We consider a writing system supported by JFC if all functionality provided by JFC works adequately for this writing system in the following situations:

On Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and 7 when running on a Windows system with both the user locale and the system locale set to a language using that writing system.
On Solaris and Linux, when running on a host operating system with the locale set to one using that writing system and one of the encodings shown for that writing system in the table below.

Oracle's Java SE Development Kit 7 and the international version of the Java SE Runtime Environment 7 support all writing systems shown below. The European languages version of the Java SE Runtime Environment 7 supports only the Cyrillic, Greek, and Latin writing systems. Peered AWT components are only supported for a subset of the writing systems - see the last column.

Details on various areas of functionality are provided in the sections below.

Supported Writing Systems

Writing System	Languages	Windows Encodings	Solaris Encodings	Linux Encodings	Peered AWT Components
Arabic	Arabic	1256	8859-6, UTF-8	UTF-8	unsupported
Chinese (Simplified)	Chinese	936, GB18030	gb2312, UTF-8, GBK, gb18030	GB18030, UTF-8	supported
Chinese (Traditional)	Chinese	950, HKSCS	cns11643, UTF-8, BIG5, BIG5HK	UTF-8	supported
Cyrillic	Belarusian, Russian etc.	1251	8859-5, KOI8-R, ANSI1251, UTF-8	UTF-8	supported
Devanagari	Hindi	UTF-8	UTF-8	unsupported	unsupported
Greek	Greek	1253	8859-7	unsupported	supported
Hebrew	Hebrew	1255	8859-8	UTF-8	unsupported
Japanese	Japanese	932	eucJP⁽¹⁾, UTF-8, PCK	UTF-8	supported
Korean	Korean	949	5601, UTF-8	UTF-8	supported
Latin - Baltic subset	Latvian, Lithuanian	1257	8859-13	unsupported	supported
Latin - Central European subset	Czech, Hungarian, Polish, etc.	1250	8859-2, UTF-8	unsupported	supported
Latin - Maltese subset	Maltese	UTF-8	UTF-8	unsupported	supported
Latin - Turkic subset	Turkish etc.	1254	8859-9, UTF-8	unsupported	supported
Latin - Western European subset	English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, etc.	1252	8859-1, 8859-15, UTF-8	ISO-8859-1, UTF-8	supported
Thai	Thai	874	TIS620.2533, UTF-8	unsupported	unsupported

(1) eucJP on Solaris supports the JIS character sets X 0201, X 0208, and X 0212.

Text Input

Support for text input consists of two parts: interpretation of keyboard layouts, and text composition using input methods. For interpretation of keyboard layouts, the Java SE relies entirely on the host operating system. For text composition using input methods, Java SE supports native input methods using the host operating system's input method manager as well as input methods developed in the Java programming language.

Locale support in input methods implemented in the Java programming language depends solely on the set of installed input methods, not on the host operating system and its localization. However, support for the use of input methods implemented in the Java programming language with peered components is implementation dependent - see below.

Support for keyboard layouts and and native input methods varies between platforms.

Windows

On Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and 7, the JRE supports use of any keyboard layout or IMM-based input method.

Input methods implemented in the Java programming language are supported in all components on all versions of Windows.

Solaris and Linux

The JRE supports use of any keyboard layout or input method that can be used with a particular Solaris or Linux locale.

Input methods implemented in the Java programming language are supported in lightweight components (such as Swing text components), but not in peered components (such as AWT text components).

Text Rendering

Applications have two options for selecting fonts:

Using the logical font names Serif, SansSerif, Dialog, DialogInput, Monospaced.
Using a physical font, either requesting it by name or instantiating it using the Font.createFont method.

Text Rendering in Lightweight Components

When using logical font names, text in at least the writing system of the host locale and the Western European subset of the Latin writing system is supported.

When using physical fonts, we need to distinguish between simple and complex writing systems. Simple writing systems have a one-to-one mapping from characters to glyphs, and glyphs are placed on the baseline continuously from left to right. Complex writing systems may use different glyphs for the same character based on context, may form ligatures, may be written from right to left, and may reorder glyphs during line layout, or may have other rules for placing glyphs (in particular for combining marks).

The 2D text rendering system supports any combination of simple writing systems and the complex writing systems listed in the table above. Within these limitations, the range of supported writing systems is determined by the font. A single TrueType font might provide glyphs covering the entire Unicode character set and a Unicode based character-to-glyph mapping. Given such a font, 2D can support all simple writing systems as well as the complex writing systems shown in the table above. Other complex writing systems are not supported.

Text Rendering in Peered Components

When using logical font names, text in at least the writing system of the host operating system's locale is supported.

Physical fonts are not supported in peered components.

Text Rendering in Printing

There are three printing APIs:

The 2D printing API, using the java.awt.print.PrinterJob.getPrinterJob method.
The AWT printing API, using the java.awt.Toolkit.getPrintJob method.
The pluggable services printing API, using the javax.print package.

Text rendering using the AWT and 2D printing API works to the same extent as text rendering on the screen. Text rendering using the pluggable services printing API depends on the printing service used; the services provided by the JRE work to the same extent as text rendering on the screen.

Drag and Drop

On Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and 7, text using the entire Unicode character set can be transferred between applications.

On Solaris and Linux, text in the character encoding of the host operating system's locale can be transferred between applications.

Applications that need to transfer arbitrary text independent of the host operating system, can do so using serialization: Create a Transferable which supports only one flavor: DataFlavor.stringFlavor. This flavor represents the serialized representation of a String. Make sure that the target supports stringFlavor as well. When the transfer occurs, the AWT will serialize out the String on one end and deserialize on the other. This is much slower than a native platform text transfer, but it will succeed where native transfers may not.

User Interface Translation

Java SE Runtime Environment

The user interface elements provided by the Java SE Runtime Environment 7, include Swing dialogs, messages written by the runtime environment to the standard output and standard error streams, as well as messages produced by the tools provided with the JRE. These user interface elements are localized into the following languages:

Language	Locale ID
Chinese (Simplified)	zh_CN
Chinese (Traditional)	zh_TW
English	en
French	fr
German	de
Italian	it
Japanese	ja
Korean	ko
Portuguese (Brazilian)	pt_BR
Spanish	es
Swedish	sv

Java SE Development Kit

The user interface elements provided by the Java SE Development Kit 7, include messages produced by the tools that are only part of the JDK in addition to the elements provided by the JRE. The additional user interface elements are localized into the following languages:

Language	Locale ID
Chinese (Simplified)	zh_CN
English	en
Japanese	ja

Java Technology