The locale variable in the context of OBIEE. It's a system session variable and is used for functions such as:
Some locale- and language-related settings are interrelated and help determine how the Oracle BI Server sorts data.
Users can change the locale setting on the Preferences tab of the My Account dialog.
In OBIEE - Instanceconfig.xml (Configuration Presentation Services):
<!-- To configure a limited set of locales to be available to users uncomment the <AllowedLocales> tag below
and choose a subset set of locale tags from the list. Values must be comma separated. -->
<!-- <AllowedLocales>ar-dz,ar-bh,ar-dj,ar-eg,ar-iq,ar-jo,ar-kw,ar-lb,ar-ly,ar-ma,ar-om,ar-qa,ar-sa,ar-so,
ar-sd,ar-sy,ar-tn,ar-ae,ar-ye,cs-cz,da-dk,de-at,de-ch,de-de,de-li,de-lu,el-gr,en-au,en-ca,en-cb,en-gb,en-hk,
en-ie,en-in,en-jm,en-nz,en-ph,en-us,en-za,en-zw,es-ar,es-bo,es-cl,es-co,es-cr,es-do,es-ec,es-es,es-gt,es-hn,
es-mx,es-ni,es-pa,es-pe,es-pr,es-py,es-sv,es-uy,es-ve,fi-fi,fr-be,fr-ca,fr-ch,fr-fr,fr-lu,fr-mc,hr-hr,hu-hu,
id-id,it-ch,it-it,iw-il,ja-jp,ko-kr,ms-my,nl-be,nl-nl,no-no,pl-pl,pt-br,pt-pt,ro-ro,ru-ru,sk-sk,sv-fi,sv-se,
th-th,tr-tr,zh-cn,zh-mo,zh-sg,zh-tw</AllowedLocales> -->
You can find it in the General section of the NQSConfig.INI file.