Force django to use settings.LANGUAGE_CODE for default language ¶

Force django to use settings.LANGUAGE_CODE for default language and not use equest.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']

file "middleware.py"

class ForceDefaultLanguageMiddleware(object):
    """
    Ignore Accept-Language HTTP headers

    This will force the I18N machinery to always choose settings.LANGUAGE_CODE
    as the default initial language, unless another one is set via sessions or cookies

    Should be installed *before* any middleware that checks request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'],
    namely django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware
    """
    def process_request(self, request):
        if request.META.has_key('HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'):
            del request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']

then in project settings:

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [
    ...
    'project.middleware.ForceDefaultLanguageMiddleware',
]

For Django 1.10 (and Python 3) its now:

def force_default_language_middleware(get_response):
    """
        Ignore Accept-Language HTTP headers

        This will force the I18N machinery to always choose settings.LANGUAGE_CODE
        as the default initial language, unless another one is set via sessions or cookies

        Should be installed *before* any middleware that checks request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE'],
        namely django.middleware.locale.LocaleMiddleware
        """
    # One-time configuration and initialization.

    def middleware(request):
        # Code to be executed for each request before
        # the view (and later middleware) are called.
        if 'HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE' in request.META:
            del request.META['HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE']

        response = get_response(request)

        # Code to be executed for each request/response after
        # the view is called.

        return response

    return middleware

References:

• https://gist.github.com/vstoykov/1366794