AWS Global Infrastructure — Regions, AZs, Edge Locations

AWS operates the world's most extensive cloud infrastructure.

Region:

A geographic area containing 2+ Availability Zones

33+ regions globally (growing)

Regions are completely independent — data doesn't cross region boundaries unless you configure it

Choose region based on: compliance, latency, services available, pricing

Availability Zone (AZ):

One or more discrete data centers with redundant power, networking, and connectivity

Physically separated within a region (typically miles apart)

Connected by high-bandwidth, low-latency fiber

Designing across 2+ AZs = high availability

Edge Locations:

180+ locations worldwide

Used by Amazon CloudFront (CDN) to cache content closer to users

Also used by Route 53, AWS Shield, WAF

Local Zones: Extensions of AWS Regions closer to large population centers; ultra-low latency for specific use cases.

Wavelength Zones: Deploy AWS services at the edge of 5G networks for ultra-low latency mobile applications.

Reference:

Wikipedia: AWS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Web_Services