The Intl object: JavaScript can speak many languages

JavaScript has a useful yet unknown object to handle formatting dates, numbers, and other values in different languages, the Intl object.

This object is very useful when you have a raw date or a big number and you need to display it in a more user-friendly way.

You can, for example, convert the date 2022-01-16T20:10:48.142Z to “January 16, 2022 at 8:10 PM” for people in the US, and to “16 de enero de 2022, 20:10” for those who live in Spain.

Formatting numbers and currency

You can format numbers and currency with the Intl.NumberFormat object. This is how it works:

const usaCurrencyFormatter = new Intl.NumberFormat(
  "en-US", // <-- Language and country
           // (in this case, US English)
  {
    style: "currency", // <-- it can also be
                       // "decimal", "percent"
                       // or "unit"

    currency: "USD"    // <-- Which currency to use
                       // (not needed if the style
                       // is not "currency")
  }
);

usaCurrencyFormatter.format(2349.56);
// ☝️ returns "$2,349.56"

const spainCurrencyFormatter = new Intl.NumberFormat(
  "es-ES",   // <!-- Spanish from Spain
  {
    style: "currency",
    currency: "EUR"    // <-- Euros
  }
);
spainCurrencyFormatter.format(2349.56);
// ☝️ returns "2349,56 €"

const qatarNumberFormatter = new Intl.NumberFormat(
  "ar-QA",   // <!-- Arabic from Qatar
  {
    style: "decimal"
  }
);
qatarNumberFormatter.format(4583290.458);
// ☝️ returns "٤٬٥٨٣٬٢٩٠٫٤٥٨"

When you’re formatting currency, you have to specify the currency parameter with the code of the currency you want/need to use. You can check a list of currency codes here.

Formatting dates

Intl.DateTimeFormat lets you format dates in different languages and locales:

const date = new Date("2022-01-16T20:10:48.142Z");
const usaDateFormatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat(
  "en-US", // US English
  {
    dateStyle: "short",  // <-- how to display the date
                         // ("short", "medium", or "long")
    
    timeStyle: "short", // <-- how to display the time
                        // if you don't include this parameter,
                        // it will just show the date

    timeZone: "America/Los_Angeles" // <-- this object also
                                    // converts time zones
  }
);

usaDateFormatter.format(date);
// ☝️ returns "1/16/22, 12:10 PM"

const brazilDateFormatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat(
  "pt-BR", // Portuguese from Brazil
  {
    dateStyle: "long",
    timeStyle: "medium",
    timeZone: "UTC"
  }
);
brazilDateFormatter.format(date);
// ☝️ returns "16 de janeiro de 2022 20:10:48"

const japanDateFormatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat(
  "ja", // Japanese
  {
    dateStyle: "long",
    timeStyle: "short",
    timeZone: "Asia/Tokyo"
  }
);
japanDateFormatter.format(date);
// ☝️ returns "2022年1月17日 5:10"

However, these are only two of the many utilities in Intl to format other types of values into different languages. On this page, there’s the full list of formatters.

Where to get languages and country codes?

Language codes consist of three parts language-writingSystem-countryOrRegion. Only the first part is necessary, and the writing system is necessary only if the language can be written in more than one alphabet/writing system.

Here are some examples:

en-US: English, United States
es: Spanish
pt-BR: Portuguese, Brazil
zh-Hans-CN: Chinese, simplified writing ("hans"), from China

The entire list of languages, countries or regions, and writing systems (or “scripts”) can be found here.