Date.prototype.toLocaleDateString()

The toLocaleDateString() method of Date instances returns a string with a language-sensitive representation of the date portion of the specified date in the user agent's timezone. In implementations with Intl.DateTimeFormat API support, this method simply calls Intl.DateTimeFormat.

When formatting large numbers of dates, it is better to create an Intl.DateTimeFormat object and use its format() method.

Syntax

toLocaleDateString()
toLocaleDateString(locales)
toLocaleDateString(locales, options)

Parameters

The locales and options arguments customize the behavior of the function and let applications specify the language whose formatting conventions should be used.

In implementations that support the Intl.DateTimeFormat API, these parameters correspond exactly to the Intl.DateTimeFormat() constructor's parameters. Implementations without Intl.DateTimeFormat support are asked to ignore both parameters, making the locale used and the form of the string returned entirely implementation-dependent.

locales
- : A string with a BCP 47 language tag, or an array of such strings. Corresponds to the locales parameter of the Intl.DateTimeFormat() constructor.
  
  In implementations without Intl.DateTimeFormat support, this parameter is ignored and the host's locale is usually used.
options
- : An object adjusting the output format. Corresponds to the options parameter of the Intl.DateTimeFormat() constructor. The timeStyle option must be undefined, or a TypeError would be thrown. If weekday, year, month, and day are all undefined, then year, month, and day will be set to "numeric".
  
  In implementations without Intl.DateTimeFormat support, this parameter is ignored.

See the Intl.DateTimeFormat() constructor for details on these parameters and how to use them.

Return value

A string representing the date portion of the given Date instance according to language-specific conventions.

In implementations with Intl.DateTimeFormat, this is equivalent to new Intl.DateTimeFormat(locales, options).format(date), where options has been normalized as described above.

Examples

Using toLocaleDateString()

In basic use without specifying a locale, a formatted string in the default locale and with default options is returned.

const date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 12, 3, 0, 0));

// toLocaleDateString() without arguments depends on the implementation,
// the default locale, and the default time zone
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString());
// "12/11/2012" if run in en-US locale with time zone America/Los_Angeles

Checking for support for locales and options parameters

The locales and options parameters may not be supported in all implementations, because support for the internationalization API is optional, and some systems may not have the necessary data. For implementations without internationalization support, toLocaleDateString() always uses the system's locale, which may not be what you want. Because any implementation that supports the locales and options parameters must support the Intl API, you can check the existence of the latter for support:

function toLocaleDateStringSupportsLocales() {
  return (
    typeof Intl === "object" &&
    !!Intl &&
    typeof Intl.DateTimeFormat === "function"
  );
}

Using locales

This example shows some of the variations in localized date formats. In order to get the format of the language used in the user interface of your application, make sure to specify that language (and possibly some fallback languages) using the locales argument:

const date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// formats below assume the local time zone of the locale;
// America/Los_Angeles for the US

// US English uses month-day-year order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("en-US"));
// "12/20/2012"

// British English uses day-month-year order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("en-GB"));
// "20/12/2012"

// Korean uses year-month-day order
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("ko-KR"));
// "2012. 12. 20."

// Event for Persian, It's hard to manually convert date to Solar Hijri
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("fa-IR"));
// "۱۳۹۱/۹/۳۰"

// Arabic in most Arabic speaking countries uses real Arabic digits
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("ar-EG"));
// "٢٠‏/١٢‏/٢٠١٢"

// for Japanese, applications may want to use the Japanese calendar,
// where 2012 was the year 24 of the Heisei era
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("ja-JP-u-ca-japanese"));
// "24/12/20"

// when requesting a language that may not be supported, such as
// Balinese, include a fallback language, in this case Indonesian
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString(["ban", "id"]));
// "20/12/2012"

Using options

The results provided by toLocaleDateString() can be customized using the options argument:

const date = new Date(Date.UTC(2012, 11, 20, 3, 0, 0));

// request a weekday along with a long date
const options = {
  weekday: "long",
  year: "numeric",
  month: "long",
  day: "numeric",
};
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("de-DE", options));
// "Donnerstag, 20. Dezember 2012"

// an application may want to use UTC and make that visible
options.timeZone = "UTC";
options.timeZoneName = "short";
console.log(date.toLocaleDateString("en-US", options));
// "Thursday, December 20, 2012, UTC"