diff --git a/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/README.md b/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/README.md
index bc01aa9f..9c1a3739 100644
--- a/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/README.md
+++ b/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/README.md
@@ -74,6 +74,13 @@ initialization by passing `-e VAR=VALUE` to the Docker run command.
 **`POSTGRESQL_ADMIN_PASSWORD`**  
        Password for the `postgres` admin account (optional)
 
+The following environment variables are optional, and only used when the database is initialzed
+
+**`POSTGRESQL_ENCODING`**
+	Database encoding. Default to utf8
+
+**`POSTGRESQL_LOCALE`**
+	Database locale. Default to en_US
 
 Alternatively, the following options are related to migration scenario:
 
diff --git a/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/common.sh b/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/common.sh
index a8592ffe..7f8cb7d2 100644
--- a/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/common.sh
+++ b/src/root/usr/share/container-scripts/postgresql/common.sh
@@ -190,7 +190,9 @@ initdb_wrapper ()
   # Initialize the database cluster with utf8 support enabled by default.
   # This might affect performance, see:
   # http://www.postgresql.org/docs/{{ spec.version }}/static/locale.html
-  LANG=${LANG:-en_US.utf8} "$@"
+  ENCODING=${POSTGRESQL_ENCODING:-utf8}
+  LOCALE=${POSTGRESQL_LOCALE:-en_US}
+  LANG=${LANG:-$LOCALE.$ENCODING} "$@"
 }
 
 function initialize_database() {
diff --git a/test/run_test b/test/run_test
index 14860eae..e21c7446 100755
--- a/test/run_test
+++ b/test/run_test
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ run_s2i_enable_ssl_test
 run_upgrade_test
 run_migration_test
 run_pgaudit_test
+run_locales_test
 "
 
 test $# -eq 1 -a "${1-}" == --list && echo "$TEST_LIST" && exit 0
@@ -898,6 +899,22 @@ EOSQL"
   grep -E 'AUDIT: SESSION,.*,.*,READ,SELECT,,,SELECT' "${data_dir}"/userdata/log/postgresql-*.log
 }
 
+function run_locales_test() {
+  local name=pg-test-locales
+  DOCKER_ARGS="-e POSTGRESQL_ENCODING=ISO_8859_6 -e POSTGRESQL_LOCALE=C" create_container $name
+  wait_ready "$name"
+
+  docker exec -i $(get_cid "$name") bash -c "psql <<EOSQL
+  SHOW SERVER_ENCODING;
+EOSQL" | grep ISO_8859_6
+
+  docker exec -i $(get_cid "$name") bash -c "psql <<EOSQL
+  SHOW LC_COLLATE;
+EOSQL" | grep -vi LC_COLLA | grep C
+
+  docker stop "$(get_cid "$name")"
+}
+
 function run_all_tests() {
   for test_case in $TEST_LIST; do
     : "Running test $test_case"