---
name: locale-bo-cn
description: Use when working with the Tibetan (China) locale (`bo-CN`) — its endonym བོད་སྐད་ (ཀྲུང་གོ), Tibetan script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
---

# Locale: Tibetan (China) (bo-CN)

Reference data for the **Tibetan (China)** locale — endonym **བོད་སྐད་ (ཀྲུང་གོ)**, written in the Tibetan script, left-to-right (LTR).

## Identifiers

- **BCP 47 tag:** `bo-CN`
- **ISO 639-1:** `bo`
- **ISO 639-3:** `bod`
- **Script:** Tibt (Tibetan)
- **Region:** CN (China)
- **Text direction:** ltr — left-to-right (LTR)

## Speakers (approximate)

- **L1 (native):** 5,000,000
- **L2 (additional):** 1,000,000
- **L1+L2 (total):** 6,000,000

## Base locale

This is a regional variant of [[locale-bo-001]] (Tibetan), the base/macro locale for this language.

## Pluralization

CLDR plural categories for this locale: **other** (1 form).

- **other** — everything else (e.g. 0~15, 100, 1000, 10000, …)

See [[unicode-messageformat]] for writing plural messages using these categories.

## Translating into this locale

Apply [[locale-bo-001]] with Tibetan conventions in China.

- **Context:** Tibetan is used in the Tibet Autonomous Region and in Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan. Official terms may be coined by calque from Chinese in government documents; follow the target publisher's terminology.
- **Dialects:** the Lhasa-based standard is the model for formal speech; Amdo and Kham readers use the same written standard but speak different varieties.
- **Formats:** dates are often written in the Gregorian calendar and the Tibetan calendar for cultural events; currency yuan (¥); Arabic digits in UI.

## Common pitfalls

- Using a spoken-dialect spelling in formal text.
- Writing Tibetan in Chinese punctuation instead of the shad.
- The general pitfalls in [[locale-bo-001]] also apply.

## Learn more

- [[locale]] for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- [[unicode-messageformat]] for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Unicode CLDR locale data for bo-CN (https://cldr.unicode.org)