'Is there a way to get a flag image from a C# CultureInfo?

If I have a CultureInfo instance, is there any simple way — built-in, through a framework or via the OS — to obtain a matching "flag" icon matching that culture? This would avoid having to create a separate lookup.

I couldn't find a member function to do the job in the documentation for CultureInfo, but perhaps there is some other not-too-taxing approach that involves other .NET classes that I haven't found.

c++sharp.netlocalizationcultureinfo


Solution 1:[1]

Extending Alex's answer. Once you have the ISO code, you can use this simple library to produce an ImageSource of the flag (from the famfamfam set) from the two character string:

https://github.com/drewnoakes/famfamfam-flags-wpf

It's not built in, but it is easy to use.

Images end up looking like this:

Solution 2:[2]

As @Peter Duniho said, there is no built-in way in the .NET Framework. Furthermore, CultureInfo represent locales, while flags represent countries, and there are many situations where the two do not perfectly match. You may incur in diplomatic problems if you come across some users.

Anyway, if you want something simple, you may want to use famfamfam's flag icons, which have been conveniently named after the ISO 3166-alpha1 2 letter country code, and then convert your CultureInfo to a RegionInfo given the locale, and finally get the two letter ISO region name:

var r = new RegionInfo(yourCultureInfo.LCID);
var flagName = r.TwoLetterISORegionName + ".gif";

finally, if such a file exists, then display it. Please note that you may use the PNG versions, and that different languages may map to the same country (I'm thinking of Switzerland, where they speak 4 official languages).

Solution 3:[3]

Guess what! It’s now possible to do this in C# and is supported by most platforms including Windows 11 devices! You can just use the emojis and you don’t need a flag icon pack!

On Windows 10 it only works on Firefox browsers for now. But it does work with iOS, MacOS & Android apps

public string GetFlag(string country)
{
  var regions = CultureInfo.GetCultures (CultureTypes. SpecificCultures).Select(x => new RegionInfo(x.LCID));
  var englishRegion = regions.FirstOrDefault(region => region.EnglishName.Contains(country));
  if (englishRegion == null) return "?";
  var countryAbbrev = englishRegion.TwoLetterISORegionName;
  return IsoCountryCodeToFlagEmoji(countryAbbrev);
}
public string IsoCountryCodeToFlagEmoji(string countryCode) => string.Concat(countryCode.ToUpper().Select(x => char.ConvertFromUtf32(x + 0x1F1A5)));

https://itnext.io/convert-country-name-to-flag-emoji-in-c-the-net-ecosystem-115f714d3ef9

Sources

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Source: Stack Overflow

Solution Source
Solution 1 Drew Noakes
Solution 2 Alex Mazzariol
Solution 3

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