lang

Lang is a surname of Germanic origin and, less commonly, a given name. In German, lang means long, a meaning that has fed into the development of descriptive or topographic surnames. The name has spread widely through European populations and into other regions via migration and diaspora.

As a surname, Lang is common in Germany and Austria and is also found in the Netherlands and Scandinavia, with extended presence in the Americas and other parts of the world due to immigration. It frequently appears in various national contexts and may be part of longer family names or used in different spellings.

Notable uses of Lang as a personal name include Lang Lang, the Chinese pianist born in 1982 who has achieved international prominence and performed with major orchestras around the world. Beyond this example, Lang appears as a surname in many fields, including arts, science, and politics, reflecting its broad geographic and cultural distribution.

In computing and information technology, LANG is an environment variable used in Unix-like systems to specify the language and regional settings for software. It is typically used together with related variables such as LC_ALL and LC_MESSAGES to control localization, translation, and formatting.

In markup and web standards, the attributes lang and xml:lang are used to declare the language of content. These declarations support accessibility, internationalization, search and indexing, and the correct rendering of language-specific typography and punctuation.

Lang also occurs as a place name in various German-speaking and other regions, often tied to historical geography or settlement patterns.