A Locale object represents a specific geographical, political, or cultural region. An operation that requires a Locale to perform its task is called locale-sensitive and uses the Locale to tailor information for the user. For example, displaying a number is a locale-sensitive operation--the number should be formatted according to the customs/conventions of the user's native country, region, or culture.

Create a Locale object using the constructors in this class:

 Locale(String language)
 Locale(String language, String country)
 Locale(String language, String country, String variant)
 

The language argument is a valid ISO Language Code. These codes are the lower-case, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-639. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as:
http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/englangn.html

The country argument is a valid ISO Country Code. These codes are the upper-case, two-letter codes as defined by ISO-3166. You can find a full list of these codes at a number of sites, such as:
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1.html

The variant argument is a vendor or browser-specific code. For example, use WIN for Windows, MAC for Macintosh, and POSIX for POSIX. Where there are two variants, separate them with an underscore, and put the most important one first. For example, a Traditional Spanish collation might construct a locale with parameters for language, country and variant as: "es", "ES", "Traditional_WIN".

Because a Locale object is just an identifier for a region, no validity check is performed when you construct a Locale. If you want to see whether particular resources are available for the Locale you construct, you must query those resources. For example, ask the NumberFormat for the locales it supports using its getAvailableLocales method.
Note: When you ask for a resource for a particular locale, you get back the best available match, not necessarily precisely what you asked for. For more information, look at ResourceBundle.

The Locale class provides a number of convenient constants that you can use to create Locale objects for commonly used locales. For example, the following creates a Locale object for the United States:

 Locale.US
 

Once you've created a Locale you can query it for information about itself. Use getCountry to get the ISO Country Code and getLanguage to get the ISO Language Code. You can use getDisplayCountry to get the name of the country suitable for displaying to the user. Similarly, you can use getDisplayLanguage to get the name of the language suitable for displaying to the user. Interestingly, the getDisplayXXX methods are themselves locale-sensitive and have two versions: one that uses the default locale and one that uses the locale specified as an argument.

The Java Platform provides a number of classes that perform locale-sensitive operations. For example, the NumberFormat class formats numbers, currency, or percentages in a locale-sensitive manner. Classes such as NumberFormat have a number of convenience methods for creating a default object of that type. For example, the NumberFormat class provides these three convenience methods for creating a default NumberFormat object:

 NumberFormat.getInstance()
 NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance()
 NumberFormat.getPercentInstance()
 

These methods have two variants; one with an explicit locale and one without; the latter using the default locale.

 NumberFormat.getInstance(myLocale)
 NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(myLocale)
 NumberFormat.getPercentInstance(myLocale)
 

A Locale is the mechanism for identifying the kind of object (NumberFormat) that you would like to get. The locale is just a mechanism for identifying objects, not a container for the objects themselves.

Field Summary
static Locale	CANADA Useful constant for country.
static Locale	CANADA_FRENCH Useful constant for country.
static Locale	CHINA Useful constant for country.
static Locale	CHINESE Useful constant for language.
static Locale	ENGLISH Useful constant for language.
static Locale	FRANCE Useful constant for country.
static Locale	FRENCH Useful constant for language.
static Locale	GERMAN Useful constant for language.
static Locale	GERMANY Useful constant for country.
static Locale	ITALIAN Useful constant for language.
static Locale	ITALY Useful constant for country.
static Locale	JAPAN Useful constant for country.
static Locale	JAPANESE Useful constant for language.
static Locale	KOREA Useful constant for country.
static Locale	KOREAN Useful constant for language.
static Locale	PRC Useful constant for country.
static Locale	ROOT Useful constant for the root locale.
static Locale	SIMPLIFIED_CHINESE Useful constant for language.
static Locale	TAIWAN Useful constant for country.
static Locale	TRADITIONAL_CHINESE Useful constant for language.
static Locale	UK Useful constant for country.
static Locale	US Useful constant for country.

Constructor Summary

Locale(String language) Construct a locale from a language code.

Locale(String language, String country) Construct a locale from language, country.

Locale(String language, String country, String variant) Construct a locale from language, country, variant.

Method Summary
Object	clone() Overrides Cloneable
boolean	equals(Object obj) Returns true if this Locale is equal to another object.
static Locale[]	getAvailableLocales() Returns an array of all installed locales.
String	getCountry() Returns the country/region code for this locale, which will either be the empty string or an uppercase ISO 3166 2-letter code.
static Locale	getDefault() Gets the current value of the default locale for this instance of the Java Virtual Machine.
String	getDisplayCountry() Returns a name for the locale's country that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayCountry(Locale inLocale) Returns a name for the locale's country that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayLanguage() Returns a name for the locale's language that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayLanguage(Locale inLocale) Returns a name for the locale's language that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayName() Returns a name for the locale that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayName(Locale inLocale) Returns a name for the locale that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayVariant() Returns a name for the locale's variant code that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getDisplayVariant(Locale inLocale) Returns a name for the locale's variant code that is appropriate for display to the user.
String	getISO3Country() Returns a three-letter abbreviation for this locale's country.
String	getISO3Language() Returns a three-letter abbreviation for this locale's language.
static String[]	getISOCountries() Returns a list of all 2-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166.
static String[]	getISOLanguages() Returns a list of all 2-letter language codes defined in ISO 639.
String	getLanguage() Returns the language code for this locale, which will either be the empty string or a lowercase ISO 639 code.
String	getVariant() Returns the variant code for this locale.
int	hashCode() Override hashCode.
static void	setDefault(Locale newLocale) Sets the default locale for this instance of the Java Virtual Machine.
String	toString() Getter for the programmatic name of the entire locale, with the language, country and variant separated by underbars.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

finalize, getClass, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, wait