July 6, 2026 · Guides

How to Show Your Google Map in Any Language in WordPress

If your website serves visitors in more than one language, your map can match. Setting the Google Map language WordPress visitors see takes a single shortcode attribute, with no API key and no extra plugins. Quick Maps renders the map interface, the place labels, and the controls in almost any language Google supports.

Use the lang attribute

Add lang with a two-letter language code. The map labels, the “Directions” button, and the terms-of-use text all switch to that language:

[quick-maps lang="es"]Madrid[/quick-maps]   ← Spanish
[quick-maps lang="fr"]Paris[/quick-maps]    ← French
[quick-maps lang="de"]Berlin[/quick-maps]   ← German

Here is a live map of Madrid rendered in Spanish:

Why set the Google Map language in WordPress

By default the map inherits the language Google infers from the visitor’s browser. That sounds helpful, and often it is. The trouble starts when it disagrees with the rest of your page.

For example, a Spanish-language landing page with an English map looks unfinished, and the “Directions” button sends people somewhere they did not expect. Pinning the language keeps the map consistent with the copy around it, whatever browser the visitor arrives with.

Therefore it matters most on multilingual sites, where each translated page can carry its own map in its own language. Google documents which values it accepts in the Maps language support list, and Quick Maps passes your value straight through.

Regional variants

You can also pass a language and region together, such as pt-BR for Brazilian Portuguese or en-GB for British English:

[quick-maps lang="pt-BR"]Rio de Janeiro[/quick-maps]

Pair it with other options

The lang attribute works alongside everything else, so you can localize a satellite map or a directions map just as easily:

[quick-maps lang="es" type="hybrid" zoom="15"]Sagrada Familia, Barcelona[/quick-maps]

Which Google Map language codes work in WordPress

Any code on Google’s supported list works, so the common ones behave exactly as you would expect: es, fr, de, it, ja, zh-CN. If you pass a code Google does not recognise, it falls back to the browser default rather than breaking, so a typo costs you the translation and nothing else.

However, one thing to watch: the language changes the interface and the place labels, not your own content. The location you type in the shortcode is still resolved the same way, so Madrid and Madrid, Spain land in the same place whichever language you render.

See the full set of display options in the guide to satellite, terrain, and zoom, or learn how Quick Maps works without a Google Maps API key.