Globalization & Localization

Today's applications are usually distributed across the world.  Previously, it was very difficult to customize applications for all of the languages and cultures that an application was used in.  Differences include:

• Languages
• Numbers (use of periods and commas)
• Currency
• Dates
• Times
• Calendars

Fortunately, Microsoft's .NET has globalization and localization built-in.  You simply set each form's Localizable property to "True" and then customize the user interface for each culture and region using the form's Language property.  Visual Studio automatically creates the resources files that contain the localized data. 

Microsoft cultures are not only languages -- but regions as well.  For example, in Microsoft there are about 19 different "regions" or dialects of Spanish.  For example, suppose you create a default Spanish culture plus regional dialects for Argentina, Cost Rica, and Mexico (only 3 of the 19 Spanish dialects).  If a user then specifies "Bolivia" then they would use the default Spanish words. 

For more information on globalization and localization we recommend this link.