diff --git a/gson/src/main/java/com/google/gson/internal/bind/TypeAdapters.java b/gson/src/main/java/com/google/gson/internal/bind/TypeAdapters.java
index 6e0f85ad6d..dc347e9dc4 100644
--- a/gson/src/main/java/com/google/gson/internal/bind/TypeAdapters.java
+++ b/gson/src/main/java/com/google/gson/internal/bind/TypeAdapters.java
@@ -921,7 +921,10 @@ public Locale read(JsonReader in) throws IOException {
           if (tokenizer.hasMoreElements()) {
             variant = tokenizer.nextToken();
           }
-          if (country == null && variant == null) {
+          if (language == null) {
+            return Locale.ROOT;
+          }
+          if (country == null) {
             return new Locale(language);
           } else if (variant == null) {
             return new Locale(language, country);
diff --git a/gson/src/test/java/com/google/gson/functional/DefaultTypeAdaptersTest.java b/gson/src/test/java/com/google/gson/functional/DefaultTypeAdaptersTest.java
index 187c3f2808..d80d390bfb 100644
--- a/gson/src/test/java/com/google/gson/functional/DefaultTypeAdaptersTest.java
+++ b/gson/src/test/java/com/google/gson/functional/DefaultTypeAdaptersTest.java
@@ -263,6 +263,20 @@ public void testLocaleDeserializationWithLanguage() {
     assertThat(locale.getLanguage()).isEqualTo("en");
   }
 
+  @Test
+  public void testLocaleDeserializationRoot() {
+    // Gson serializes Locale.ROOT to "", so it must read "" back to Locale.ROOT.
+    String json = "\"\"";
+    Locale locale = gson.fromJson(json, Locale.class);
+    assertThat(locale).isEqualTo(Locale.ROOT);
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void testLocaleSerializationRoot() {
+    // Locale.ROOT round-trips: it is serialized as an empty string.
+    assertThat(gson.toJson(Locale.ROOT)).isEqualTo("\"\"");
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void testLocaleSerializationWithLanguageCountry() {
     Locale target = Locale.CANADA_FRENCH;