---
title: Setting default languages for users and visitors
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/multilingual-websites/setting-up-multilingual-websites/setting-up-culture-detection.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

You can configure which language version the system displays to users when they arrive on the website.

## Configuration for registered users

The website culture displayed to registered website users depends on each user's **Preferred content culture** setting.

- Users can change this setting for their account in the administration interface, on the **Details** tab of the **My profile** application.
- Website administrators can adjust the setting for users in the **Users** application (when editing users on the **General** tab).

Depending on this configuration, users either see the content in their preferred culture (if available), or in the website's [default content culture](https://docs.kentico.com/13/multilingual-websites/setting-up-multilingual-websites.md) (if set to _(default)_ or if the preferred culture is not available).

> **Note:** **Note**: The act of signing in does not change the currently selected culture, so the setting only has an effect if users are already signed in when they first reach the website (e.g. when using [Windows authentication](https://docs.kentico.com/13/managing-users/user-registration-and-authentication/configuring-windows-ad-authentication.md)).

## Configuration for anonymous visitors

You can also configure the default content culture that the website displays to anonymous visitors. This can be done separately for the [main website domain](https://docs.kentico.com/13/configuring-xperience/managing-sites/setting-domain-names-for-sites.md) and for individual [domain aliases](https://docs.kentico.com/13/configuring-xperience/managing-sites/setting-domain-names-for-sites.md):

1. Open the **Sites** application.
2. Edit your site.
3. On the **General** tab, select a **Visitor culture**.
   - This culture is used for visitors accessing the website through the main domain name.
4. If your site uses domain aliases, edit the aliases and select a **Visitor culture**.
   - These cultures are used for visitors accessing the website through the given domain alias.
   - **Note**: If the site uses [content tree-based routing](https://docs.kentico.com/13/developing-websites/implementing-routing/content-tree-based-routing.md), the _Visitor culture_ field is only available when the _URL format for multilingual sites_ [setting](https://docs.kentico.com/13/configuring-xperience/managing-sites/configuring-settings-for-sites/settings-urls-and-seo.md) is set to _Domain_.

The _Visitor culture_ is displayed to new visitors before they select their own preferred culture. The values can either be set to one of the cultures available for the website, or to **(automatic)**. The _(automatic)_ option attempts to apply the culture from the **user's browser settings**.

## Setting the default language for specific domains

Using the **Visitor culture** settings of the site and its domain aliases (described in the section above), you can configure the system to use a different default language based on the current domain. For example, if you use the following domains:

- example.com (main domain)
- example.de (domain alias)
- example.fr (domain alias)

You can set English, German and French as the default cultures for the domain and domain aliases (respectively). Now, when a visitor arrives at _example.fr_, the website automatically displays its French content.

Refer to [Configuring URLs for multilingual websites](https://docs.kentico.com/13/multilingual-websites/setting-up-multilingual-websites/configuring-urls-for-multilingual-websites.md) for additional information about cultures, domains and URLs.