---
title: Locale indicator
framework: quicktime-file-format
role: article
role_heading: Article
path: quicktime-file-format/locale_indicator
---

# Locale indicator

A four-byte value that indicates a locale.

## Overview

Overview The locale indicator is formatted as a four-byte value. It is formed from two two-byte values: a country indicator, and a language indicator. In each case, the two-byte field has the possible values shown in the following table.  |   |   |   |  Note that both ISO 3166 and ISO 639-2/T codes have a nonzero value in their top byte, and so will have a value > 255. Software applications that read metadata may be customized for a specific set of countries or languages. If a metadata writer does not want to limit a metadata item to a specific set of countries, it should use the reserved value ZZ from ISO 3166 as its country code. Similarly if the metadata writer does not want to limit the user’s language (this is not recommended) it uses the value ‘und’ (undetermined) from the ISO 639-2/T specification. A software application matches a country code if either (a) the value to be matched to is 0 (default) or (b) the codes are equal. A software application matches to a list of codes if its value is a member of that list. A software application matches to a locale if both country and language match. The following table shows some example metadata tags.  |  |   |  |   |  |   |  |   |  |   |  |   |  |  To reiterate, if the country_indicator value is in the range 1 to 255, it is interpreted as the 1-based index for a country list in the Country Language atom in the Metadata atom. If the language_indicator value is in the range 1 to 255, it is interpreted as the 1-based index for a language list in the Language List atom in the Metadata atom. Otherwise, the country_indicator or language_indicator is unspecified (0) or holds the immediate value for a single country or language.

## See Also

### Types and usage

- [Extensibility](quicktime-file-format/extensibility.md)
- [Localization list sets](quicktime-file-format/localization_list_sets.md)
- [Type indicator](quicktime-file-format/type_indicator.md)
- [Data ordering](quicktime-file-format/data_ordering.md)
- [Well-known types](quicktime-file-format/well-known_types.md)
- [Location metadata](quicktime-file-format/location_metadata.md)
- [QuickTime metadata keys](quicktime-file-format/quicktime_metadata_keys.md)
- [Direction definition](quicktime-file-format/direction_definition.md)
- [Metadata handling](quicktime-file-format/appendix_d_metadata_handling.md)