ZA · ZAF

South Africa languages and locale codes

Official or primary languages with practical BCP 47 locale recommendations.

BCP 47

Languages and locale codes

Language	Code	Recommended locale	Status
English			Official
Zulu			Regional official
Xhosa			Regional official
Afrikaans			Regional official
Northern Sotho			Regional official
Tswana			Regional official
Southern Sotho			Regional official
Tsonga			Regional official
Swati			Regional official
Venda			Regional official
South Ndebele			Regional official

Use a South Africa locale in a product

When content is written in English, use the lang tag below to describe the text. The Intl locale selects regional formatting. This is one example from the table, not a claim about every visitor's language preference.

<html lang="en">
new Intl.NumberFormat("en-ZA").format(1234567.89);

Compare number and date formatting

These examples use 1234567.89 and the fixed instant 2026-01-15T13:45:00Z, with dates displayed in UTC. Intl computes the results when this site is built; your browser and locale-data version may differ. Unsupported tags are identified instead of showing default-language output.

Intl formatting examples (UTC)
Locale	Number	Date	Currency
`en-ZA`	1 234 567,89	15 January 2026	ZAR: R 1 234,50
`zu-ZA`	1,234,567.89	Januwari 15, 2026	ZAR: R 1,234.50
`xh-ZA`	1 234 567.89	Janyuwari 15, 2026	ZAR: R 1 234.50
`af-ZA`	1 234 567,89	15 Januarie 2026	ZAR: R 1 234,50
`nso-ZA`	1,234,567.89	2026 Janeware 15	ZAR: R 1,234.50
`tn-ZA`	1'234'567.89	2026 Ferikgong 15	ZAR: R 1'234.50
`st-ZA`	1,234,567.89	2026 Pherekgong 15	ZAR: R 1,234.50
`ts-ZA`	Unsupported in this build	Unsupported in this build	ZAR: Unsupported in this build
`ss-ZA`	Unsupported in this build	Unsupported in this build	ZAR: Unsupported in this build
`ve-ZA`	Unsupported in this build	Unsupported in this build	ZAR: Unsupported in this build
`nr-ZA`	Unsupported in this build	Unsupported in this build	ZAR: Unsupported in this build

Currency examples use the fixed value 1234.5. SIX and CLDR snapshot: 2026-09-26. Specify each currency explicitly; formatting is not an exchange rate.

new Intl.NumberFormat("en-ZA", { style: "currency", currency: "ZAR" }).format(1234.5);

Before adopting a tag, run Intl.NumberFormat.supportedLocalesOf() and Intl.DateTimeFormat.supportedLocalesOf() in your target runtime. A locale does not select a time zone or translate interface text; specify currency explicitly when formatting money.

Intl locale support reference (MDN)

Data provenance

Sources

Data snapshot: 2026-09-26