Quote from the example of locale library. 6.26 locale -- Internationalization services http://docs.python.org/lib/module-locale.html >>> loc = locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL) # get current locale >>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'de_DE') # ... The first line should read :: >>> loc = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_ALL) # get current locale I mean, s/set/get.