Changing your WordPress site language to English (UK)

In the older versions of WordPress the language files were kept locally within the WordPress installation files (wp-content/languages) however, in WordPress versions from about 4 onwards they’ve changed how the site language is managed. As always, before you do anything, back everything up, have a plan for restoring your site if you make a cock-up, don’t attempt this if you’re not 100% sure you are able to do it successfully. In other words, messing about with your site files if you don’t really know what you’re doing is very risky and you can easily break your site!

Check your WordPress version

Firstly you need to check your WordPress version. The simplest way to do this by logging into your website dashboard and checking the updates page, or use a site like WhatCMS (https://whatcms.org) to find out. WordPress versions prior to 4.x click here to see the old tutorial to change your site language.

Note: It may be possible to change your site language by creating a language file and adding the language files as in the previous tutorial but I’ve not tried this yet. If you try it and it does or doesn’t work, please let me know

Checking your WordPress site language
Firstly you need to check your WordPress version.

WordPress versions 4.x onwards can use the following tutorial to change their site language.

  1. Log into your site via FTP or file manager
  2. Open your wp_config.php file for editing (this is in the main site directory where you’ll also find files like ‘index.php’ and ‘wp-login.php’ along with folders called ‘wp-admin’ and ‘wp-content’
  3. Within the wp_config.php file you need to find the line of code ‘define(‘WPLANG’, ”);’ – the most recent site I changed this was on line 147. Try using CTRL+F to find the word ‘WPLANG’
  4. Find your WordPress Locale Code for the language you want. For example, UK english the locale code is ‘en_GB’ or for Belgian French the locale code is ‘fr_BE’. There is a full list of the WordPress Locale Codes at the bottom of this post (try using CTRL+F to find the one you need)
  5. Add the WordPress Locale Code to the line of code from step 3 within the empty apostrophes, for example, to change your site language to UK English, it would go from looking like this define(‘WPLANG’, ”); to looking like this define(‘WPLANG’, ‘en_GB’); (see illustration below)
  6. Save the updated wp_config.php file
  7. Log into your site dashboard and go to ‘Settings > General > Site Language’ where you will now find your new language in the drop-down box. Change this and save. Done
Within the wp_config.php file you need to find the line of code 'define('WPLANG', '');'
Within the wp_config.php file you need to find the line of code ‘define(‘WPLANG’, ”);’

WordPress Locale Codes – full list

You may want to use CTRL+F to find the language you’re looking for

Language Name Language Code WordPress Locale Code
Afrikaans af af
Akan ak ak
Albanian sq sq
Amharic am am
Arabic ar ar
Armenian hy hy
Aromanian rup rup_MK
Assamese as as
Azerbaijani az az
Azerbaijani (Turkey) az-tr az_TR
Bashkir ba ba
Basque eu eu
Belarusian bel bel
Bengali bn bn_BD
Bosnian bs bs_BA
Bulgarian bg bg_BG
Burmese mya my_MM
Catalan ca ca
Catalan (Balear) bal bal
Chinese (China) zh-cn zh_CN
Chinese (Hong Kong) zh-hk zh_HK
Chinese (Taiwan) zh-tw zh_TW
Corsican co co
Croatian hr hr
Czech cs cs_CZ
Danish da da_DK
Dhivehi dv dv
Dutch nl nl_NL
Dutch (Belgium) nl-be nl_BE
English en en_US
English (Australia) en-au en_AU
English (Canada) en-ca en_CA
English (UK) en-gb en_GB
Esperanto eo eo
Estonian et et
Faroese fo fo
Finnish fi fi
French (Belgium) fr-be fr_BE
French (France) fr fr_FR
Frisian fy fy
Fulah fuc fuc
Galician gl gl_ES
Georgian ka ka_GE
German de de_DE
German (Switzerland) de-ch de_CH
Greek el el
Guaraní gn gn
Gujarati gu gu_IN
Hawaiian haw haw_US
Hazaragi haz haz
Hebrew he he_IL
Hindi hi hi_IN
Hungarian hu hu_HU
Icelandic is is_IS
Ido ido ido
Indonesian id id_ID
Irish ga ga
Italian it it_IT
Japanese ja ja
Javanese jv jv_ID
Kannada kn kn
Kazakh kk kk
Khmer km km
Kinyarwanda kin kin
Kirghiz ky ky_KY
Korean ko ko_KR
Kurdish (Sorani) ckb ckb
Lao lo lo
Latvian lv lv
Limburgish li li
Lingala lin lin
Lithuanian lt lt_LT
Luxembourgish lb lb_LU
Macedonian mk mk_MK
Malagasy mg mg_MG
Malay ms ms_MY
Malayalam ml ml_IN
Marathi mr mr
Mingrelian xmf xmf
Mongolian mn mn
Montenegrin me me_ME
Nepali ne ne_NP
Norwegian (Bokmål) nb nb_NO
Norwegian (Nynorsk) nn nn_NO
Oriya ory ory
Ossetic os os
Pashto ps ps
Persian fa fa_IR
Persian (Afghanistan) fa-af fa_AF
Polish pl pl_PL
Portuguese (Brazil) pt-br pt_BR
Portuguese (Portugal) pt pt_PT
Punjabi pa pa_IN
Rohingya rhg rhg
Romanian ro ro_RO
Russian ru ru_RU
Russian (Ukraine) ru-ua ru_UA
Rusyn rue rue
Sakha sah sah
Sanskrit sa-in sa_IN
Sardinian srd srd
Scottish Gaelic gd gd
Serbian sr sr_RS
Sindhi sd sd_PK
Sinhala si si_LK
Slovak sk sk_SK
Slovenian sl sl_SI
Somali so so_SO
South Azerbaijani azb azb
Spanish (Argentina) es-ar es_AR
Spanish (Chile) es-cl es_CL
Spanish (Colombia) es-co es_CO
Spanish (Mexico) es-mx es_MX
Spanish (Peru) es-pe es_PE
Spanish (Puerto Rico) es-pr es_PR
Spanish (Spain) es es_ES
Spanish (Venezuela) es-ve es_VE
Sundanese su su_ID
Swahili sw sw
Swedish sv sv_SE
Swiss German gsw gsw
Tagalog tl tl
Tajik tg tg
Tamazight (Central Atlas) tzm tzm
Tamil ta ta_IN
Tamil (Sri Lanka) ta-lk ta_LK
Tatar tt tt_RU
Telugu te te
Thai th th
Tibetan bo bo
Tigrinya tir tir
Turkish tr tr_TR
Turkmen tuk tuk
Uighur ug ug_CN
Ukrainian uk uk
Urdu ur ur
Uzbek uz uz_UZ
Vietnamese vi vi
Walloon wa wa
Welsh cy cy
Yoruba yor yor