Region

A geographic area where AWS runs data centres, like us-east-1 (N. Virginia).

Think of it as: A city where AWS has its buildings.

What to know for Level 0

Most services are regional: an RDS database or a DynamoDB table exists only in the Region it was created in, so check the Region menu before you build or go looking. A few services, like IAM, are global.
Each Region has several Availability Zones: separate data centres, so one failure doesn't take them all out.

More detail

Most AWS services live in one Region and you choose which. Each Region is made of several Availability Zones: separate data centres far enough apart that one flood or power cut doesn’t take them all out. A few services, like IAM, are global and not tied to any Region.

Quiz yourself on Region →

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