Globalization and Localization in ASP.NET Core – Detailed
In this article, we will go through a less-talked about topic in the ASP.NET Core Community. We will discuss in detail, Globalization and Localization in ASP.NET Core Application and go through various approaches on changing the Culture of the Application via Request. We will also do some advanced configuration where we store the Selected Language Information to the Cookie in the client browser. You can see the complete source code of this implementation on my Github.
While starting to build an ASP.NET Core application, or any other application, There are few considerations to take care of. One of them is, “Will our Application be Multi-Lingual?”. According to me, it is highly important to make your application Multi-Lingual, if you are not able to anticipate the future of your application. Down the line, there can be an instance where you have already completed the application, but suddenly it needs to be multilingual as well. Trust me, you do not want to be in that place.
To be on the safer side, it’s good to build your applicaiton with multi-language support right from the beginning, yeah?
What we’ll Learn?
In brief, here are the topics that we will cover in this article.
- Basics of Globalization & Localization
- Building a MultiLingual ASP.NET Core Application (Web-API and MVC)
Here is a small demo of what we will build.

What is Globalization?
Globalization is a process by which develoeprs make a product supported in multiple languages. This mostly involves improving the backend of web applications, which ultimately contributes to the SEO of the website. This includes meta-data, file names, labels and even the website URLs.
What is Localization?
Localization is the process to transalate the content to fulfil the demands of a particular culture / language. This does not limit to just transalting the texts, but also numbers, date and time formats, currency , symbols and so on.
Read the Official Documentation from Microsoft here.
Building a Multi-Lingual ASP.NET Core Application
We will build an ASP.NET Core MVC Application and try to implement Localization to it. I wil be using Visual Studio 2019 as my IDE. So in this application, for better demonstration of the implementation, we will work with both Views and API Controllers. In the Views, we will localize the Content of the UI and in the API part, let’s work on the messages thrown by the API.
We will be working with Resource files to store the transalations for various languages. Let’s create a new ASP.NET Core 3.1 MVC Application.

PS, Selecting Authentication is Optional.
Registering the Required Services and Middleware
Let’s register the Service required for Localization in our ASP.NET Core Applicaiton. Navigate to Startup.cs/ConfigureServices method.
services.AddLocalization(options => options.ResourcesPath = "Resources"); services.AddMvc() .AddViewLocalization(Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Razor.LanguageViewLocationExpanderFormat.Suffix) .AddDataAnnotationsLocalization();
Now, let’s add the Localization Middleware to the HTTP Pipeline. Navigate to Configure Method of Startup.cs and add in the following.
var cultures = new List<CultureInfo> { new CultureInfo("en"), new CultureInfo("fr") }; app.UseRequestLocalization(options => { options.DefaultRequestCulture = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization.RequestCulture("en"); options.SupportedCultures = cultures; options.SupportedUICultures = cultures; });
Line 1 – Here, we specify the Cultures that our Application will support. For now, it supports English and French. You could make it more specific by adding something like “en-US” and “fr-FR”. In this line we define a collection of supported cultures for later use.
Line 5 – Everytime your Application get’s a request, How will the application know which culture to use? Here is where we define it.
Line 6 – If the request contains no culture information or cultures that we don’t yet support, the user will be served with English Resources.
Line 7 – This will indicate how we format numbers, currencies etc.
Line 8 – Used when we retrieve resources.
Localizing the API Endpoint.
Once we have registered the required services and middlewares, let’s try to use Localization in an API endpoint. In this section, we will create a Random API endpoioint that generates a GUID with a message, and try to switch languages between English and French. We will also go through 2 of the 3 ways to switch locales for the incoming request.
Create a New Folder in the Controllers and name it API. Here, add a new Empty API Controller and name it LanguageController.
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc; using Microsoft.Extensions.Localization; using System; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace Multilingual.ASPNETCore.Controllers.API { [Route("api/[controller]")] [ApiController] public class LanguageController : ControllerBase { private readonly IStringLocalizer<LanguageController> _localizer; public LanguageController(IStringLocalizer<LanguageController> localizer) { _localizer = localizer; } [HttpGet] public async Task<IActionResult> Get() { var guid = Guid.NewGuid(); return Ok(_localizer["RandomGUID", guid.ToString()].Value); } } }
Line 11 – IStringLocalizer is used to generate Localized String based on the key. Here we are going to inject this Service to the constructor of the Controller.
Line 19 – Random GUID Generation.
Line 20 – We use the Localizer Object to get the appropriate message that has a Key “RandomGUID” in our Resource File. You can see that we are also passing the GUID to the object. But we have not yet created a Resource File right?
Resource File Naming and Folder Convention.
This is one of the cleaner approaches by Microsoft. Ideally Resources for each View/API Controller/Models has to seperated with a smiliar folder structure.
In our case, the Language Controller is located at Controllers/API/LanguageController.cs. Remeber the Resource Folder we created in the beginning? Here is where you would place the Resources. Create a similar folder structure within the Resource Folder.

Understand the convention? We need resources for the Language Controller, hence we split the LanguageController to both en and fr resource files having corresponding resources.
RandomGUID is the key that we specified in the API Controller right? Let’s add values to this particular key in both of the Resource Files.


Get the point, yeah? This seems a cleaner way to seperate resources based on the Folder Structure. What’s your opinion about this?
Now, let’s build and run our application. I will use postman to test this endpoint, as I will change certain Request Headers too.
First, send a GET request to localhost:xxx/api/language.

You can see that our implementation works right out of the box. As we mentioned earlier, if the request doesnt have information about the requested culture, the response would revert back to our default culture, that is, English. Now, let’s try to request with the fr culture. There are 3 ways to do this.
- Specify the Culture in the Request Query String.
- Specify the Culture in Request Header,
- and store the preference culture in a cookie.
In this section, we will cover the first 2 ways to request for a particular culture.
Query String Based Culture Request
As you might have already guessed, in this approach we will just need to append a specific query to our request. Switch back to Postman and send a GET request to localhost:xxxx/api/Language?culture=fr

Easy, yeah? Like we talked about earlier let’s change the culture to ‘ar’ an check the response.

As expected, we get a response with our default selected Culture, English.
Request Header Based Culture Request
Now, let’s add the culture info to the header of the request. It’s quite simple to do in POSTMAN. Click on the Headers and add the key “Accept-Language” and change the value to ‘fr’. You can receive the expected response.

Now that we learnt how to localize API response, let’s implement the same in the Views too. Although the concept is same, there are slight variations that we will go through.
Localizing the Views
In this section, I will localize the HomePage View (Views/Home/Index.cshtml). To keep things simple, let’s just implement this feature to transalte the Welcome and caption texts of this view.

Navigate to Views/Home/Index.cshtml and modify the following.
@inject Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Localization.IViewLocalizer localizer @{ ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page"; } <div class="text-center"> <h1 class="display-4">@localizer["Welcome"]</h1> <p>@localizer["LearnMore"]</p> </div>
Line 1 – Previously for the controller we use a String Localizer. But here in the views, inorder to support HTMLs too, we use this IViewLocalizer Interface.
Line 7,8 – Like before, we use the localizer object and specify the key of the resource we need.
Finally, let’s create the Resource. Remember the Folder convention that we used earlier? Make something similar here too.



Pretty self explanatory I guess. The only difference is that, here we use the HTML content too. Let’s run the Application and see the Home Page.

The English Resources work. Let’s add a query string here to change the culture to French.

Store the Culture Preference in a Cookie
Adding Query Strings or changing the Reuqest Headers may look like a convinient way while tsesting the application. But in practical / production scenarios, they are a big NO-NO. What would be better is to have the preferred Culture stored somewhere in the client machine, preferrably the client Browser as a cookie, right?
So, here is how it will work. In our Shared Layout, we will introduce a drop down which contains a list of available cultures. Once the user changes the DropDown Value, it should trigger a controller action that would set the selected culture on to a cookie, which would then reflect back on to our UI.
Before that we need to change our Service Registrations since we need a IOptions list of RequestCultures. Navigate to the Configure Services in the Startup class and add the following.
services.Configure<RequestLocalizationOptions>(options=> { var cultures = new List<CultureInfo> { new CultureInfo("en"), new CultureInfo("fr") }; options.DefaultRequestCulture = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization.RequestCulture("en"); options.SupportedCultures = cultures; options.SupportedUICultures = cultures; });
Then, in the Configure method, comment out all that we had added earlier and add this new line of code.
//var cultures = new List<CultureInfo> { // new CultureInfo("en"), // new CultureInfo("fr") //}; //app.UseRequestLocalization(options => //{ // options.DefaultRequestCulture = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization.RequestCulture("en"); // options.SupportedCultures = cultures; // options.SupportedUICultures = cultures; //}); app.UseRequestLocalization(app.ApplicationServices.GetRequiredService<IOptions<RequestLocalizationOptions>>().Value);
Next, let’s create a partial view to hold the combobox (select) component. I had refered Microsoft’s documentations for this. Under the Views/Shared Folderm add a new View and name it _CulturePartial.cshtml
@using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder @using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization @using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Localization @using Microsoft.Extensions.Options @inject IViewLocalizer Localizer @inject IOptions<RequestLocalizationOptions> LocOptions @{ var requestCulture = Context.Features.Get<IRequestCultureFeature>(); var cultureItems = LocOptions.Value.SupportedUICultures .Select(c => new SelectListItem { Value = c.Name, Text = c.Name }) .ToList(); var returnUrl = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Context.Request.Path) ? "~/" : $"~{Context.Request.Path.Value}{Context.Request.QueryString}"; } <div title="@Localizer["Request culture provider:"] @requestCulture?.Provider?.GetType().Name"> <form id="selectLanguage" asp-controller="Culture" asp-action="SetCulture" asp-route-returnUrl="@returnUrl" method="post" class="form-horizontal nav-link text-dark" role="form"> <select name="culture" onchange="this.form.submit();" asp-for="@requestCulture.RequestCulture.UICulture.Name" asp-items="cultureItems"> </select> </form> </div>
Line 6,7 – Here, we are introducing the IOptions of the Request Localizer.
Line 16 – We are adding a form that would trigger the SetCulture Method of the CultureController (we will add this Controller in some time)
Now that we have created the partial view, let’s add it to the Navigation bar. Open up the Views/Shared/_LoginPartial.cshtml and add this highlighted code.
<li class="nav-item"> @await Html.PartialAsync("_CulturePartial") </li> @if (SignInManager.IsSignedIn(User)) { <li class="nav-item"> <a class="nav-link text-dark" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="/Account/Manage/Index" title="Manage">Hello @User.Identity.Name!</a> </li> <li class="nav-item"> <form class="form-inline" asp-area="Identity" asp-page="/Account/Logout" asp-route-returnUrl="@Url.Action("Index", "Home", new { area = "" })"> <button type="submit" class="nav-link btn btn-link text-dark">Logout</button> </form> </li> }
We have not added the Controller yet. But. let’s just run the application to check if we are able to render the select component within our layout.

With that working, let’ add the Controller and Actions. We will also add resource for this Partial View so that ‘en’ appears as English, ‘fr’ as French asd so on. Get the point, yeah?
First, I will add the required Resources.


We have to make a slight change in the Partial View also.
@{ var requestCulture = Context.Features.Get<IRequestCultureFeature>(); var cultureItems = LocOptions.Value.SupportedUICultures .Select(c => new SelectListItem { Value = c.Name, Text = Localizer.GetString(c.Name) }) .ToList(); var returnUrl = string.IsNullOrEmpty(Context.Request.Path) ? "~/" : $"~{Context.Request.Path.Value}{Context.Request.QueryString}"; }
Here, we use the Localizer Object to get the transalated string from the corresponding resource file. Next, add a new Controller, CultureController.
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http; using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization; using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc; using System; namespace Multilingual.ASPNETCore.Controllers { public class CultureController : Controller { [HttpPost] public IActionResult SetCulture(string culture, string returnUrl) { Response.Cookies.Append( CookieRequestCultureProvider.DefaultCookieName, CookieRequestCultureProvider.MakeCookieValue(new RequestCulture(culture)), new CookieOptions { Expires = DateTimeOffset.UtcNow.AddYears(1) } ); return LocalRedirect(returnUrl); } } }
Line 10 – Here we add a new POST Method that will be invoked by the change in the Combobox.
Line 12-15, we create a new cookie with the selected culture information. We also set an expiration of 1 year to the cookie.
Let’s Run the Application.


You can see that our implementation works well. Quite easy to implement Globalization and Localization in ASP.NET Core, right? We will finish this article here.
Summary – Globalization and Localization in ASP.NET Core
We learnt all about Globalization and Localization of ASP.NET Core Application following several recommended approaches. We covered topics like IStringLocalizer, View Localizer, Query based Culture, Request based Culture, and storing the Culture into the Cookie, and creating a select component to help the user select the prefered Culture. You can find the completed source code here. I hope you learnt something new and detailed in this article. If you have any comments or suggestions, please leave them behind in the comments section below. Do not forget to share this article within your developer community. Thanks and Happy Coding! 😀
Hey, greate article… but how will that work if you would have the Resource Files within its own class library?
Hi, Thanks.
You could have a new assembly that serves the resources only. And use this assembly in the registration to load.
Or, probably have the library return in terms of keys, so that you can translate in the asp.net core app itself.
Thanks and regards
Hey, thanks for the quick response. I think this is currently really tricky and it is also mentioned as an issue/troubleshoot on the official documentation (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/troubleshoot-aspnet-core-localization?view=aspnetcore-3.1#resources–class-libraries-issues) …
it think the only problem would be on the registration process within the service collection where you register the ResourcePath… I am already looking for a while for a solution but haven´t found one yet.
I have currently an ASP.NET Core 3.1 API Project which implements the CQRS Pattern and IMEDIATR Pattern and therefor I would like to place all resources within its own library… dont know if this will be possible… maybe with this ResourceLocationAttribute somehow…
Best Regards
Nice & helpful ! Thanks !
One remark tho, I think you went a bit far with the translation (maybe for the purpose of the demo); the language picker should not be globalized but rather each language should appear as the natives write it. If one doesn’t know either English or the Latin characters, hitting the default ‘en’ page with the ‘en’ translated language picker would transform into a guessing game until they manage to get right the “hieroglyph sequence” that means their language 🙂
Hi, Thanks for the feedback.
Haha, yeah. I would say this is more of a tutorial that states the capabilities of a features. Implementation totally depends on the developer / client.
Thanks and Regards
Great & so helpful !
But I have a question, how can I create a new cookie?
please I am waiting your answer.
Workssssssssssssss 100000000000%
Hi Mukesh, great article.
I have one question, is it required ResourcesPath = “Resources” or can have ResourcesPath = “LocalizationResources”. Asking because having “Resources” having conflict.
Thanks for the guide, Mukesh.
Could you explain how to localize models – i.e. store all of the properties of the model in multiple languages and display the correct version with the correct langauge?
For example, you have an online shop, and you want to be able to display product details in English and French. What’s the best way to handle this (particularly with regard to data structure?)
public class EditProfileModel
{
[Display(ResourceType = typeof(Resources.Accounts), Name = “Register_FullNameField”)]
public string FullName { get; set; }
}
will this work the same for blazor?
Awesome….
Excellent Article!!
Trying to set url including current culture (i.e. https://codewithmukesh.com/fr-fr/blog), only if not default culture selected in dropdown. Is there a best way to achieve this?
Thanks!
Excellent article! To the point explanation. Thanks!
Very good tutorials. Keep it that way.
I have only one question: if I want to keep all the translations in one file for each culture? (Ex: shared_resource.en.resx)
Simply awesome
The article is simply great. It is easy to implement. I have a question regarding WebAPI. I have a separate project of WebAPI in .net Core. How to pass the selected culture from this web application to WebAPI project. I don’t want to send via query string. How to pass it through request headers or some other way.
Hi, thanks for the great article but I have a question about the best approach to take: Whether to send localized strings to view through a view model or use View Localisation directly in the views. Thanks in advance.
have problem , when change language from dropDown List dose not go to Action SetCulture()
How to send and figure out the culture of a web api request for return correspond message strings from recourse files?
Very good Mukesh,
For .Net core 6, here is a fix for Program.cs
builder.Services.AddLocalization(options => options.ResourcesPath = “Resources”);
builder.Services.AddMvc()
builder.Services.Configure(options =>
{
var cultures = new List {
new CultureInfo(“en”),
new CultureInfo(“fr”)
};
options.DefaultRequestCulture = new Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization.RequestCulture(“en”);
options.SupportedCultures = cultures;
options.SupportedUICultures = cultures;
});
var app = builder.Build();
var options = app.Services.GetRequiredService<IOptions>();
app.UseRequestLocalization(options.Value);
Hi,
Do you have an idea how to adbot the language for RTL?
Hi Mukesh,
We have implemented this and works fine in Dev environment and we have deployed in Linux – Nginx .When i try to change the language, it does not work in linux environment.Do i need to do any configuration for this.please advice.
Hi Mukesh,
Can you please guide how to deploy this in linux environment as i have deployed and i am facing some challenges while changing the language.
thank you so much
I have implemented same code in my POC application its run properly but in my working project its not works what is the resason?