Here's some modern Swift code based on @eskimo's recommended approach. My requirement was to localize a "month/day" string, e.g. Apr 28, so it would appear as "4/28" in the U.S., but reformatted as "28/4" or similar in other locales. The +dateFormat(fromTemplate:options:locale) function seems to be smart enough to flip the "M/d" around to match the locale. @eskimo, does this look like a valid implementation? import Foundation let now = Date() for localeIdentifier in Locale.availableIdentifiers { let locale = Locale(identifier: localeIdentifier) let forcedLocale = gregorianForcedLocale(using: locale) let dateFormat = DateFormatter.dateFormat(fromTemplate: "M/d", options: 0, locale: forcedLocale)! let formatter = DateFormatter() formatter.calendar = Calendar(identifier: .gregorian) formatter.dateFormat = dateFormat let dateString = formatter.string(from: now) print(localeIdentifier + ", " + dateFormat + ", " + dateString) } func gregorianForcedLocale(using locale: Locale) - Locale { let localeIdentifier = locale.identifier var components = Locale.components(fromIdentifier: localeIdentifier) components["calendar"] = "gregorian" let customLocaleIdentifier = Locale.identifier(fromComponents: components) let customLocale = Locale(identifier: customLocaleIdentifier) return customLocale }