diff --git a/defaults/main.yml b/defaults/main.yml
index 2cf8a896..47815f80 100644
--- a/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/defaults/main.yml
@@ -218,6 +218,10 @@ lxc_cache_download_template_options: >-
   --variant {{ lxc_cache_default_variant }}
   {{ lxc_cache_download_template_extra_options }}
 
+# Locales to populate in the LXC base cache
+lxc_cache_locales:
+  - en_US.UTF-8
+
 # LXC must be installed from a COPR repository on CentOS 7 since the version
 # provided in EPEL is much too old (1.x).
 lxc_centos_package_baseurl: https://copr-be.cloud.fedoraproject.org/results/thm/lxc2.0/epel-7-x86_64/
diff --git a/templates/prep-scripts/ubuntu_16_prep.sh.j2 b/templates/prep-scripts/ubuntu_16_prep.sh.j2
index 3d47e866..a84274f7 100644
--- a/templates/prep-scripts/ubuntu_16_prep.sh.j2
+++ b/templates/prep-scripts/ubuntu_16_prep.sh.j2
@@ -35,6 +35,13 @@ for action in disable mask; do
   systemctl ${action} systemd-networkd-resolvconf-update.service || true
 done
 
+{% for locale in lxc_cache_locales %}
+locale-gen {{ locale }}
+{% if loop.first | bool %}
+update-locale LANG={{ locale }}
+{% endif %}
+{% endfor %}
+
 # Set the IP of the lxcbr0 interface as the DNS server
 echo "nameserver {{ lxc_net_address }}" > /etc/resolv.conf
 systemctl enable systemd-networkd
diff --git a/vars/ubuntu-16.04.yml b/vars/ubuntu-16.04.yml
index 5aa22fa9..18581397 100644
--- a/vars/ubuntu-16.04.yml
+++ b/vars/ubuntu-16.04.yml
@@ -23,10 +23,8 @@ _lxc_cache_map:
     - /etc/apt/sources.list
     - /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/
     - /etc/apt/preferences.d/
-    - /etc/default/locale
     - /etc/environment
     - /etc/localtime
-    - /etc/locale.conf
     - /root/repo.keys
     - /etc/protocols
 
@@ -37,11 +35,13 @@ _lxc_cache_distro_packages:
   - ca-certificates
   - cron # xenial doesn't have cronie
   - dbus
+  - debianutils # for 'which' executable
   - gcc
   - iproute2
   - iputils-ping
   - libffi-dev
   - libssl-dev
+  - locales
   - netbase
   - openssh-server
   - openssl
@@ -54,4 +54,3 @@ _lxc_cache_distro_packages:
   - systemd-sysv
   - tar
   - wget
-  - debianutils # for 'which' executable