diff --git a/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/package-installs.yaml b/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/package-installs.yaml
index 4aaffdb2d..779c2adb5 100644
--- a/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/package-installs.yaml
+++ b/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/package-installs.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # kernel
 kernel-default:
+# locale support (we need LC_ALL=en_US.utf8)
+glibc-locale:
 # And a few useful tools. Some are pulled
 # as dependencies but that may change so lets
 # be explicit.
diff --git a/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/post-install.d/01-locale-cleanup b/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/post-install.d/01-locale-cleanup
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..056f3472f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/diskimage_builder/elements/zypper-minimal/post-install.d/01-locale-cleanup
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Only keep the minimum amount of locales to save disk space
+#
+
+if [ "${DIB_DEBUG_TRACE:-0}" -gt 0 ]; then
+    set -x
+fi
+set -eu
+set -o pipefail
+
+find /usr/lib/locale -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d 2>/dev/null | \
+    grep -Ev '/(C.utf8|en_US|en_US.utf8)$' | xargs rm -rf