System.Globalization

The System.Globalization namespace contains classes that define culture-related information, including language, country/region, calendars in use, format patterns for dates, currency, and numbers, and sort order for strings. These classes are useful for writing globalized (internationalized) applications. Classes such as System.Globalization.StringInfo and System.Globalization.TextInfo provide advanced globalization functionalities, including surrogate support and text element processing.

Remarks

The following MSDN blogs include discussions of the System.Globalization namespace and its classes:

Classes

Type	Reason
Calendar	Represents time in divisions, such as weeks, months, and years.
CalendarAlgorithmType	Specifies whether a calendar is solar-based, lunar-based, or lunisolar-based.
CalendarWeekRule	Defines different rules for determining the first week of the year.
CharUnicodeInfo	Retrieves information about a Unicode character. This class cannot be inherited.
ChineseLunisolarCalendar	Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated using the Chinese calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.
CompareInfo	Implements a set of methods for culture-sensitive string comparisons.
CompareOptions	Defines the string comparison options to use with System.Globalization.CompareInfo.
CultureInfo	Represents locale information used by all culture dependendent types and methods.
CultureNotFoundException	The exception thrown when a method is invoked which attempts to construct a culture that is not available on the machine.
CultureTypes	Defines the types of culture lists that can be retrieved using the System.Globalization.CultureInfo.GetCultures(System.Globalization.CultureTypes) method.
DateTimeFormatInfo	Provides culture-specific information about the format of date and time values.
DateTimeStyles	Defines the formatting options that customize string parsing for some date and time parsing methods.
DaylightTime	Defines the period of daylight saving time.
DigitShapes	Specifies the culture-specific display of digits.
EastAsianLunisolarCalendar	Represents a calendar that divides time into months, days, years, and eras, and has dates that are based on cycles of the sun and the moon.
GregorianCalendar	Represents the Gregorian calendar.
GregorianCalendarTypes	Defines the different language versions of the Gregorian calendar.
HebrewCalendar	Represents the Hebrew calendar.
HijriCalendar	Represents the Hijri calendar.
IdnMapping	Supports the use of non-ASCII characters for Internet domain names. This class cannot be inherited.
JapaneseCalendar	Represents the Japanese calendar.
JapaneseLunisolarCalendar	Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated as for the Japanese calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.
JulianCalendar	Represents the Julian calendar.
KoreanCalendar	Represents the Korean calendar.
KoreanLunisolarCalendar	Represents time in divisions, such as months, days, and years. Years are calculated using the Gregorian calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.
NumberFormatInfo	Provides culture-specific information for formatting and parsing numeric values.
NumberStyles	Determines the styles permitted in numeric string arguments that are passed to the Parse and TryParse methods of the integral and floating-point numeric types.
PersianCalendar	Represents the Persian calendar.
RegionInfo	Contains information about the country/region.
SortKey	Represents the result of mapping a string to its sort key.
StringInfo	Provides functionality to split a string into text elements and to iterate through those text elements.
TaiwanCalendar	the Taiwan calendar.
TaiwanLunisolarCalendar	Represents the Taiwan lunisolar calendar. As for the Taiwan calendar, years are calculated using the Gregorian calendar, while days and months are calculated using the lunisolar calendar.
TextElementEnumerator	Enumerates the text elements of a string.
TextInfo	Defines text properties and behaviors, such as casing, that are specific to a writing system.
ThaiBuddhistCalendar	Represents the Thai Buddhist calendar.
TimeSpanStyles	Defines the formatting options that customize string parsing for the erload:System.TimeSpan.ParseExact and erload:System.TimeSpan.TryParseExact methods.
UmAlQuraCalendar	Represents the Saudi Hijri (Um Al Qura) calendar.
UnicodeCategory	Defines the Unicode category of a character.