---
title: Internationalization settings in Kibana
description: Kibana ships translation files for English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and German. Plugins and admin-installed translation files can add additional...
url: https://www.elastic.co/elastic/docs-builder/docs/3221/reference/kibana/configuration-reference/internationalization-settings
products:
  - Kibana
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available
  - Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available
---

# Internationalization settings in Kibana
You do not need to configure any settings to run Kibana in English.

## General settings
<definitions>
  <definition term="i18n.defaultLocale">
    <stack-availability>Elastic Stack: Planned</stack-availability>
    <supported-on>Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available, Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available</supported-on>

The locale used for server-rendered strings and as the default for users
who haven't picked a preferred language. Must be one of the values listed
in `i18n.locales` when that setting is non-empty.
Datatype: `string`
Default: `'en'`
  </definition>
  <definition term="i18n.locales">
    <stack-availability>Elastic Stack: Planned</stack-availability>
    <supported-on>Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available, Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available</supported-on>

The list of locales that Kibana offers in the per-user language picker.
Locales not in this list are not available to users, even if translation
files for them are installed. Set to `[]` to disable the language picker
entirely.
Datatype: `list`
Default: `["en", "fr-FR", "ja-JP", "zh-CN", "de-DE"]`
  </definition>
  <definition term="i18n.locale">
    <stack-availability>Elastic Stack: Planned for deprecation</stack-availability>
    <supported-on>Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available, Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available</supported-on>

Set the Kibana interface language.
Datatype: `enum`
Default: `en`
Options:
- `en`: English
- `zh-CN`: Chinese
- `ja-JP`: Japanese
- `fr-FR`: French
- `de-DE`: German

<admonition title="Deprecation details">
  Replaced by `i18n.defaultLocale`. Kibana continues to honor `i18n.locale` if set, logging a deprecation warning at startup.
</admonition>

  </definition>
</definitions>


## Built-in and custom locales

Kibana ships translation files for English, French, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and German. Plugins and admin-installed translation files can add additional locales. Any locale listed in `i18n.locales` for which a translation file exists will be served; locales without translation files fall back to English.

## Per-user language selection

When `i18n.locales` is not empty, individual users can choose their preferred display language:
- <applies-to>Self-managed Elastic deployments: Generally available</applies-to> **User Profile page** — Users can select a language from the **Language** section on their profile page (*User icon → Profile*).
- <applies-to>Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available</applies-to> <applies-to>Elastic Cloud Hosted: Generally available</applies-to> **User menu** — Users can select a language from the **Language** option in the user menu available from the application header.

When a user sets a preferred language, it is stored in their user profile and takes effect after a page reload.

### Resolution priority

Kibana resolves the display language using the following priority chain:
1. **User profile setting** — The language selected by the user in their profile or the user menu (must be one of `i18n.locales`).
2. **`i18n.defaultLocale` config** — The server-wide default set in `kibana.yml`.


## Example configurations

```yaml
# 1. Default behavior — picker shows the five bundled locales, server defaults
#    to English. Equivalent to omitting all i18n.* keys.

# 2. Curate the picker to a subset:
i18n.locales: ["en", "ja-JP"]
i18n.defaultLocale: "en"

# 3. Disable the per-user picker entirely (server still serves defaultLocale).
#    The flow-style empty array (square brackets) is the supported way to
#    express "no locales"; the block-list form has no syntax for an empty list.
i18n.locales: []
i18n.defaultLocale: "en"

# 4. Legacy form — still works, logs a deprecation warning at startup:
i18n.locale: "ja-JP"
```