Choosing a Region

For many services, you can choose an AWS Region that specifies where your resources are managed. Regions are sets of AWS resources located in the same geographical area. You don't need to choose a Region for the AWS Management Console or for some services, such as AWS Identity and Access Management. To learn more about AWS Regions, see Managing AWS Regions in the AWS General Reference.

To choose a Region

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

2. Choose a service to go to that service's console.

3. In the navigation bar, choose the name of the currently displayed Region. Then choose the Region to which you want to switch.

To choose a default Region

1. In the navigation bar, choose the settings icon, and then choose More user settings to navigate to the Unified Settings page.

2. Choose Edit next to Localization and default Region.

3. Select your default Region, then choose Save changes. If you do not select a default Region, the last Region you visited will be your default.

Note

If you have created AWS resources but you don't see those resources in the console, the console might be displaying resources from a different Region. Some resources (such as Amazon EC2 instances) are specific to the Region where they were created. To see them, use the Region selector to choose the Region that contains your resources.