App Store · Localizations
App Store localizations and keywords: which languages each country searches
Every App Store country or region has a default language, and many have additional ones: Apple publishes the list for all 175 in App Store Connect Help. Apple also says that people can find your app with a localization’s keywords in every country where the App Store supports that language. So in the United States, besides English (U.S.), nine more localizations can match a search: Spanish (Mexico), French, Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian and Vietnamese. What Apple doesn’t document is whether words from two localizations combine into one search, or how much each one counts. And because the store also matches across languages on its own, the only clean test of a localization is a word that exists in that localization alone.
What Apple documents
Apple covers the subject on two pages of App Store Connect Help. The first, App Store localizations, lists the 50 languages and locales you can localize your metadata into, then gives a table: for each of the 175 countries and regions, a “default language” and, for some, “additional supported language(s)”.
The second, on localizing app information, explains what those languages do, with French as the example:
If you localize your app metadata in French, the French localization displays to users whose language setting is in French. The French localization also displays to users in countries or regions where the App Store supports French but not English. Users can search for your app using localized keywords in all countries or regions where the App Store supports French. If no localization matches a user’s language setting, the next most relevant localization is used. In other countries or regions, your metadata displays in the primary language (English in this example).
Two rules come out of that paragraph, and they are different:
- Search follows the table. A localization’s keywords are searchable in every storefront that lists its language, as default or additional.
- Display follows the person. Which localization someone sees depends on their language setting, the storefront, the languages you added and your primary language. Apple’s table page says the same: the language shown “could be impacted by factors like the App Store language for their location, their device’s language settings, languages you’ve added, and your primary language”. When no localization matches someone’s language, Apple uses the next most relevant one; in countries that support none of your languages, it shows your primary language.
Apple’s sentence speaks of “localized keywords”. It does not separately mention the name and subtitle of that localization, which are also matched by search (see the name and subtitle guide).
What the table says, country by country
Here are the rows that matter to most developers, as Apple lists them:
| Country or region | Default language | Additional languages |
|---|---|---|
| United States | English (U.S.) | Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), French, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Mexico), Vietnamese |
| United Kingdom | English (U.K.) | None |
| Canada | English (Canada) | French (Canada) |
| Australia | English (Australia) | English (U.K.) |
| France | French | English (U.K.) |
| Germany | German | English (U.K.) |
| Spain | Spanish (Spain) | Catalan, English (U.K.) |
| Mexico | Spanish (Mexico) | English (U.K.) |
| Brazil | Portuguese (Brazil) | English (U.K.) |
| Switzerland | German | English (U.K.), French, Italian |
| Japan | Japanese | English (U.S.) |
| Republic of Korea | Korean | English (U.K.) |
| China mainland | Chinese (Simplified) | English (U.K.) |
| India | English (U.K.) | Bangla, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu |
Counted over all 175 rows, the table says more than any single row:
- English (U.K.) is the world’s English. It is a language of 172 of the 175 storefronts, and the default in 135. The three exceptions are the United States, Canada and Japan.
- English (U.S.) is listed in two storefronts only: the United States and Japan.
- French is listed in 32: France and three other countries as default, and 28 as additional, from Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg to Morocco, Senegal and the United States. Not in Canada, whose French is a separate locale, French (Canada).
- Spanish (Mexico) is listed in 19: the default in 16 Latin American countries, and additional in the United States, Belize and Uruguay. Spanish (Spain) is listed in Spain only.
- Arabic is listed in 17, always as an additional language.
- 71 storefronts list no additional language, the United Kingdom among them.
- India lists the most languages, twelve. The United States lists ten.
So a localization is not just a translation: it is a set of fields searched in a set of storefronts. A Spanish (Mexico) localization is read in 19 of them, a Spanish (Spain) one in a single one.
The table covers the localizations you add. If your app has a single language, Apple shows it everywhere, as the paragraph above says; it doesn’t write the same sentence about search.
What do additional localizations change for your keywords?
Each localization has its own name, subtitle and keyword field: 30, 30 and 100 characters. In a storefront that lists several languages, each of your localizations in those languages adds its fields to what search can match there. In the United States, that is up to ten keyword fields, and ten names and subtitles.
That is the idea behind a common practice: filling the Spanish (Mexico) keyword field with extra English keywords to rank better in the United States. The mechanism matches Apple’s sentence, and Apple’s pages don’t say that a localization’s keywords must be in its language. But the practice has costs that are easy to miss:
- Those words also become searchable in 18 other storefronts, every one that lists Spanish (Mexico). Searchable “in all countries or regions where the App Store supports” the language, not in the United States only.
- The rest of the localization is on display. Its name, subtitle, description and screenshots are what people who use their device in Spanish see, in Mexico, in 15 other countries and in the United States. They must be real Spanish.
- Apple’s advice goes the other way. Its product page guide says: “You can also translate your app’s name and tailor your keywords to reflect the values of each market so your app might better resonate with the local audience.” Keywords that serve another market don’t fit that, and Apple’s keyword rules (relevant terms, no competitor names) apply in every localization.
Two practical details from Apple’s help: when you add a language, its screenshots and fields start as copies of the primary language’s, “except for the description and keywords”. A new localization therefore starts with your primary name and subtitle, untranslated, and an empty keyword field. And when you delete a language, the storefronts that showed it go back to your primary language.
Cross-localization: documented, observed, claimed
“Cross-localization” is the ASO name for one storefront searching several localizations. Online, documented facts, observations and guesses about it are often mixed. Here they are, separated:
| Claim | What Apple documents | Status |
|---|---|---|
| A storefront searches more than one localization | The table, and the “localized keywords” sentence | Documented |
| The United States searches English (U.S.) and Spanish (Mexico) | Yes, and eight more languages | Documented |
| The United Kingdom also searches English (Australia) | Apple’s table lists no additional language for the UK | Claimed by some ASO tables; not tested here |
| Words from two localizations combine into one search | Nothing | Not documented; not tested here |
| An additional localization counts as much as the default | Nothing | Not documented |
| Your primary language is searched everywhere | Only that it is shown where none of your languages is supported | One possible reading of what we saw for two apps, below |
| French stands in where French (Canada) is missing | Only for display: “the next most relevant localization is used” | Not documented for search |
Several ASO guides publish their own country tables, at least one of them built from tests with made-up keywords. They agree with Apple on the United States, but some differ elsewhere: the most cited ones list English (Australia) as a second language of the UK store, where Apple’s table lists none. When a third-party table and Apple’s disagree, start from Apple’s, then test.
What real searches show
Searching a word in two storefronts and comparing looks like an easy test. It isn’t, and the first measurement shows why.
The United Kingdom lists only English (U.K.), yet it returned about as many of these apps as the United States, which lists Spanish, French and Korean. And for a Japanese word, a language the US row doesn’t list, the United States returned apps that Japan’s own search didn’t return at all. The store matches across languages by itself; Apple doesn’t document how. So an app found in a storefront for a foreign word tells you nothing about which of its localizations matched.
A cleaner signal is a word with no meaning to translate: a brand name written in one script, in one localization only.
The Japanese name was found only in Japan. That matches Apple’s table: neither the United States nor the United Kingdom lists Japanese. The Korean names were found in the United Kingdom, which doesn’t list Korean. One explanation fits both results: the primary language. Both apps come from developers with Korean names, so Korean is probably their primary language, and if the store searches an app’s primary language everywhere, the UK finds the Korean name but not the Japanese one. Another explanation is possible: the Korean brand may also sit in the hidden keyword field of the apps’ English localization. Neither the primary language nor a keyword field is visible from outside, and Apple documents neither behaviour: treat it as a lead, not a rule.
How do you test it on your own app?
Only your own app lets you place a word exactly where you want it. The protocol:
- Choose a test word that exists nowhere else. It must have no meaning in any language, since the store matches across languages; it must not appear in your app name or developer name, which are searchable everywhere; and it should still relate to your app, since Apple asks for relevant keywords. The name of one of your features, written as one invented word, works well.
- Put it in one localization only. For example, in the Spanish (Mexico) keyword field and nowhere else. Ship the version.
- Search it everywhere it matters. Once the version is live, search the word in the storefronts where Apple’s table says it should be found (Mexico, the United States…) and in controls where it shouldn’t (Spain, the United Kingdom…). Several searches per storefront, on several days. Note the rank, or its absence, and the number of results.
- Read it against the table. Found where the language is listed and absent elsewhere: the table holds for your app. Found elsewhere: check whether that localization is your primary language.
- Test combinations the same way. Put one invented word in English (U.S.) and another in Spanish (Mexico), then search the two together in the United States. Found: the localizations combine. Not found, while each word alone is found: they don’t.
- Remove the test words in the next version.
Step 3 is what ASO Gauge does every day: it searches the App Store in 32 countries three times a day and records a rank or “not in the first 250” for each keyword, as described in its method. The guide to measuring rankings explains why one search per storefront is never enough.
Common mistakes
- Translating keywords word for word. Apple asks you to tailor them to each market; people in each country search with their own words.
- Filling Spanish (Mexico) with English for the US alone. Those words are searchable in 18 other storefronts, and the localization’s name and subtitle are what Mexico sees by default.
- Forgetting that a new localization copies your primary name and subtitle. Translate them, and fill its empty keyword field.
- Testing with a real word. The store matches across languages; use a word that exists in one localization only.
- Trusting a country table that isn’t Apple’s. Some differ from Apple’s on rows that matter.
- Reading a rank in one storefront as valid in another. Each storefront searches its own set of languages, and ranks its own way.
Sources
- Apple, App Store Connect Help, App Store localizations: the 50 languages and locales, and the default and additional languages of the 175 countries and regions.
- Apple, App Store Connect Help, Localize app information: where a localization is displayed and searchable, the primary language, adding and deleting languages.
- Apple, Creating your product page: localizing the name and tailoring keywords to each market.
- Apple, App Store search: keyword rules that apply in every localization.
- Measurements: the App Store app’s iPhone search, by ASO Gauge’s method, on 26 October 2026, one search per word and storefront. Twelve searches for “habit” in four languages between 00:09 and 00:10 Paris time, and nine searches for brand names between 00:12 and 00:13, in Mexico, France, Korea, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
- The country counts above were made from Apple’s table as published on 26 October 2026.
Checked on 26 October 2026.