Localize the map

You can customize the language and region settings used in your map by changing the locale environment on your Map, which can affect the labels and behavior of the map based on the specified language and country or territory.

See the coverage for Maps 3D SDK for iOS in the Maps coverage table.

Language localization

By default, the Maps 3D SDK for iOS uses the system locale configured on the user's device (Locale.current) to determine which translation of the map to display. You can override this default behavior by applying the SwiftUI .environment(\.locale, ...) modifier to your Map view, or update the bound Locale state variable dynamically at runtime.

Setting the language affects the translation of political features, descriptors, and natural features—such as changing "Geneva" to "Genève" or "lake" to "lac"—and changes the direction that text is rendered for right-to-left scripts.

The Maps 3D SDK for iOS looks for localization preferences in the following order:

1. SwiftUI environment: The Locale value passed to .environment(\.locale, ...) on Map.
2. Device settings: The system default locale configured on the iOS device.

The following example displays a Map in Chinese ("zh") and sets the region to China ("CN"):

import GoogleMaps3D
import SwiftUI

struct ContentView: View {
  var body: some View {
    Map(mode: .hybrid)
      .environment(\.locale, Locale(identifier: "zh-CN"))
  }
}

You can also update the language and region dynamically at runtime by binding the environment locale to a @State property:

import GoogleMaps3D
import SwiftUI

struct LocalizationExampleView: View {
  @State private var mapLocale: Locale = .current

  var body: some View {
    VStack {
      Map(mode: .hybrid)
        .environment(\.locale, mapLocale)

      HStack {
        Button("Français") {
          mapLocale = Locale(identifier: "fr-FR")
        }
        Button("日本語") {
          mapLocale = Locale(identifier: "ja-JP")
        }
        Button("中文") {
          mapLocale = Locale(identifier: "zh-CN")
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Region localization

Setting the region on the Locale passed to .environment(\.locale, ...) on Map can serve different map tiles or bias the app toward regionally appropriate results. Setting the region also helps ensure that your app applies the regional localization for the country or territory where the app is distributed.

To keep the user's device language while setting a specific region code (for example, "JP"), construct a Locale using Locale.Components:

var components = Locale.Components(locale: Locale.current)
components.region = Locale.Region("JP")
let regionBiasedLocale = Locale(components: components)