---
github_directory: https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/tree/main/extension/icu
layout: docu
title: ICU Extension
---

The `icu` extension contains an easy-to-use version of the collation/timezone part of the [ICU library](https://github.com/unicode-org/icu).

## Installing and Loading

To install and load the `icu` extension, run:

```sql
INSTALL icu;
LOAD icu;
```

## Features

The `icu` extension introduces the following features:

* [region-dependent collations](../sql/expressions/collations)
* [time zones](../sql/data_types/timezones), used for [timestamp data types](../sql/data_types/timestamp) and [timestamp functions](../sql/functions/timestamptz)