Frontend Region Detection
While Multilingual only supports 2-character language-codes in its language configuration and the provided $language-parameter it also comes with some basic support for region-codes.
If an additional region-code is included in the URL, found in the multilingual cookie or detected in the browser preferences its value will be provided in an additional parameter named $region.
Unlike the $language-parameter which is deeply involved in how Multilingual works the $region-parameter doesn’t come with any built-in logic or special powers – it’s simply meant as an additional information that can be used like any other parameter.
How to set a region
An additional region-code can easily be included in all 3 different URL structures that are supported by Multilingual:
1. Set a region by adding the $region-parameter to the URL query string
domain.com/page/?language=en®ion=gb
2. Set a region by adding it to the language-code in the URL Path
domain.com/en-gb/page/
3. Set a region by mapping it to a (sub)domain in Multilingual’s domain configuration
domain.co.uk=en-gb
Autodetection & Fallback
If the URL doesn’t provide information about a distinct region Multilingual will rely on it’s own cookie or the browser’s http_accept_language-header to populate the $region-parameter.
But unlike the indispensable $language-parameter which will fall back to the default configured language if no valid language-code is found the parameter $region will simply be empty if no region can be detected.