diff --git a/CHANGES.rst b/CHANGES.rst
index 85ab4d5..bdce0ce 100644
--- a/CHANGES.rst
+++ b/CHANGES.rst
@@ -4,6 +4,12 @@ Changelog
 Here you can see the full list of changes between each SQLAlchemy-Utils release.
 
 
+0.31.5 (2015-01-14)
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+- Fixed scalar parsing of LocaleType (#173)
+
+
 0.31.4 (2015-12-06)
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
diff --git a/sqlalchemy_utils/__init__.py b/sqlalchemy_utils/__init__.py
index 8396aae..4438066 100644
--- a/sqlalchemy_utils/__init__.py
+++ b/sqlalchemy_utils/__init__.py
@@ -93,4 +93,4 @@ from .types import (  # noqa
     WeekDaysType
 )
 
-__version__ = '0.31.4'
+__version__ = '0.31.5'
diff --git a/sqlalchemy_utils/types/locale.py b/sqlalchemy_utils/types/locale.py
index 6751a96..7948575 100644
--- a/sqlalchemy_utils/types/locale.py
+++ b/sqlalchemy_utils/types/locale.py
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ class LocaleType(types.TypeDecorator, ScalarCoercible):
 
 
         user.locale = 'de_DE'
-        user.locale  # Locale('de_DE')
+        user.locale  # Locale('de', territory='DE')
 
     """
 
@@ -71,5 +71,5 @@ class LocaleType(types.TypeDecorator, ScalarCoercible):
 
     def _coerce(self, value):
         if value is not None and not isinstance(value, babel.Locale):
-            return babel.Locale(value)
+            return babel.Locale.parse(value)
         return value
diff --git a/tests/types/test_locale.py b/tests/types/test_locale.py
index 106a211..7360a22 100644
--- a/tests/types/test_locale.py
+++ b/tests/types/test_locale.py
@@ -36,6 +36,11 @@ class TestLocaleType(TestCase):
 
         assert self.session.query(self.User.locale).first()[0] == ko_kr
 
+    def test_coerce_territory_parsing(self):
+        user = self.User()
+        user.locale = 'ko_KR'
+        assert user.locale == locale.babel.Locale(u'ko', territory=u'KR')
+
     def test_scalar_attributes_get_coerced_to_objects(self):
         user = self.User(locale='en_US')