Language and region

Manage → Settings → Currency & region, the Region block.

There are three fields, and they are not in the same state. The screen says:

"The language is applied to your published pages and to the messages your storefront shows shoppers; timezone and units are saved for later — nothing reads them yet."

True for the language and the unit; out of date for the timezone — see below.

Language — this one does something

It does two things, and both are observable:

It reaches the published page's lang attribute. That is how browsers and search engines know what language the page is in: whether a browser offers to translate it, how a screen reader pronounces it, where a search engine files it.

It picks the language of the messages shoppers see. Text the storefront generates — as opposed to text you typed — follows this setting.

What it does not do: translate your content. Product names, button labels, articles stay exactly as you wrote them. This declares what language the page is in; it is not a translation engine. Selling in several languages is the Content languages block right below, with its own page: Selling in more than one language.

About the value

The server validates the shape of a language code rather than checking it against a fixed list: vi, en, fr, pt-BR are all accepted.

Which means you can set a language the admin interface has no translation for. The published page declares it correctly, and generated messages fall back to a language that does exist. Deliberate: declaring the truth beats being blocked.

Timezone — one thing reads it now

The Booking app does: every date rule on a booking form — the notice window, closed dates, future-only — is judged in the timezone set here. Left blank, it is judged in UTC, and a store in Vietnam finds "today" ending at seven in the morning. See The Booking app.

Nothing else reads it yet: timestamps on orders and in Manage do not shift with this field.

Weight unit — nothing reads it

This one is stored and nothing else. Nothing displays weight in the unit you choose. Filling it in does no harm, and when a feature does use it your value will already be there — but do not expect it to change anything today.

This page says so because the screen says so. A setting that looks live and is not is the worst kind of silence.

Your language versus the store's language

• The site language here decides what the published page declares and what language shoppers see messages in.
• Your interface language — what you see in the editor and the Manage screens — is a setting on your account, not on the site.

A Vietnamese agency can perfectly well build an English store: Vietnamese admin interface, site declaring en.

The other tabs in Settings

The same screen also holds:

• General — store name, description (used for previews and SEO), support email and phone, customer accounts, maintenance mode, the site ID.
• Currency & region — base currency, money display, multi-currency, region, content languages. See Currency and price display.
• Address — where the business is based.
• Social — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube links.
• Policies — returns, shipping, privacy. "Shown to customers in the footer and at checkout."
• Agency — handing the store's day-to-day operation to an agency.
• API keys — see API keys.
• Delivery, Tax, Returns, Abandoned cart — the order's rules; see Orders and The cart.
• Webhooks — see Webhooks.
• Danger zone — deleting the site. You have to retype the site's name to confirm.

The site ID

General carries the Site ID with a copy button: "Identifies this site in support requests and API calls."

When reporting a problem to somebody, send this along — the fastest way for them to find the right store.