"Spanish" is one entry in your stack but four or five distinct markets with their own word choices. Apple does not simplify the choice for you — App Store Connect only exposes two Spanish locales, and they do not cover the whole Spanish-speaking world.
The two App Store Connect locales
- Spanish (Spain) — es-ES. Targets Spain itself.
- Spanish (Mexico) — es-MX. Targets Mexico and acts as the de-facto Latin American fallback for App Store metadata.
That is it. There is no Argentina, Colombia, Chile, or Peru locale on the App Store side. Visitors from those countries see whichever Spanish you uploaded, with es-MX winning when both exist.
The es-419 surprise
Xcode itself supports es-419 — Spanish (Latin America) — for in-app strings. So you can ship a single localization file for all of Latin America inside the app, then upload App Store screenshots and metadata under es-MX. The two layers do not have to agree on locale code.
Word differences that matter
- Computer: "ordenador" (Spain) / "computadora" (Mexico).
- Phone: "móvil" (Spain) / "celular" (Mexico).
- You (formal plural): "vosotros" is Spain only; Latin America uses "ustedes" for both formal and informal plural.
What to do if you ship one
Pick es-MX. It reaches a much larger combined audience and reads as neutral in most of Latin America. Spain users notice "computadora" but install anyway; Latin American users notice "vosotros" and feel like the app is not for them.
Currency and numbers
Spain uses the euro and the European decimal "1.234,56". Mexico uses the peso and the same comma-decimal format. Argentina (peso, also comma) and Chile (CLP, no decimals on prices). If a screenshot shows a price card, change it per locale; cheap ASO win.