Azure Region Abbreviations: The Complete List for Resource Naming

Azure has no official region abbreviations. Microsoft’s CAF examples use the full region ID (eastus, westeurope), and most teams shorten it only when names get tight: eus for East US, wus2 for West US 2, uks for UK South. The complete 40-region list is below.

The region component is usually the easiest part of an Azure name to decide and the hardest to find a definitive list for. Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework publishes official abbreviations for resource types (kv, st, vnet) but none for regions. Its own examples simply use the full region ID. Everything shorter comes from community convention, which is why every blog post and naming tool you find differs slightly.

This is the list we use in AzureNamer, with the common variants noted where they exist.

Full region ID or short code?

Both are valid choices. Pick based on how tight your names get:

Full region ID (eastus, westeurope): unambiguous, matches what the portal and az account list-locations show, and needs no lookup table. CAF’s own examples use this form. The cost is length, germanywestcentral alone is 18 characters, which does not fit comfortably in a 24-character storage account name.

Short code (eus, weu, gwc): saves 3 to 15 characters, which matters for storage accounts, Key Vaults, and other tightly limited types. The cost is that it needs to be documented, because nothing in Azure will tell a new team member what gwc means.

A common middle ground: full region IDs for long-limit resources (resource groups at 90 characters have room to spare) and short codes for constrained ones. If you want one rule for everything, short codes are the safer default because they fit everywhere.

The complete list

Region	Azure ID	Short code
East US	eastus	eus
East US 2	eastus2	eus2
West US	westus	wus
West US 2	westus2	wus2
West US 3	westus3	wus3
Central US	centralus	cus
North Central US	northcentralus	ncus
South Central US	southcentralus	scus
West Central US	westcentralus	wcus
North Europe	northeurope	neu
West Europe	westeurope	weu
UK South	uksouth	uks
UK West	ukwest	ukw
France Central	francecentral	frc
France South	francesouth	frs
Germany West Central	germanywestcentral	gwc
Sweden Central	swedencentral	sdc
Switzerland North	switzerlandnorth	chn
Norway East	norwayeast	noe
Poland Central	polandcentral	plc
Italy North	italynorth	itn
Spain Central	spaincentral	spc
East Asia	eastasia	ea
Southeast Asia	southeastasia	sea
Japan East	japaneast	jpe
Japan West	japanwest	jpw
Korea Central	koreacentral	krc
Korea South	koreasouth	krs
Central India	centralindia	inc
South India	southindia	ins
West India	westindia	inw
Australia East	australiaeast	aue
Australia Southeast	australiasoutheast	ase
Australia Central	australiacentral	ac
Brazil South	brazilsouth	brs
Canada Central	canadacentral	cac
Canada East	canadaeast	cae
South Africa North	southafricanorth	san
UAE North	uaenorth	uaen
Qatar Central	qatarcentral	qac

Common variants

Because there is no official standard, you will see alternates in the wild. The frequent ones:

• West Europe: weu, sometimes we
• North Europe: neu, sometimes ne
• Australia East: aue, sometimes ae
• Sweden Central: sdc or sec

None of these is more correct than another. What matters is picking one set, documenting it, and never mixing two schemes in the same estate, because rg-payments-prod-we-001 and rg-billing-prod-weu-001 sitting side by side will confuse every automation script and every new hire.

Region codes in real names

With workload payments, production, instance 001:

Resource	East US	West Europe
Resource group	rg-payments-prod-eus-001	rg-payments-prod-weu-001
Key Vault	kv-payments-prod-eus-001	kv-payments-prod-weu-001
Storage account	stpaymentsprodeus001	stpaymentsprodweu001

For multi-region deployments the region code is what keeps the two sides distinguishable, rg-payments-prod-eus-001 primary and rg-payments-prod-wus2-001 failover. See the multi-region naming guide for the full pattern.

Wiring it into Terraform

Keep the mapping in one locals block so the abbreviation is derived, never hand-typed:

variable "location" {
  default = "westeurope"
}

locals {
  region_abbr = {
    eastus     = "eus"
    eastus2    = "eus2"
    westus2    = "wus2"
    westeurope = "weu"
    uksouth    = "uks"
    # extend with the regions you actually deploy to
  }

  name_suffix = "${var.workload}-${var.environment}-${local.region_abbr[var.location]}-001"
}

resource "azurerm_key_vault" "main" {
  name     = "kv-${local.name_suffix}"
  location = var.location
  # ...
}

Changing the deployment region then updates every name automatically, and an unknown region fails the plan instead of producing a half-named estate.

Summary

• Azure publishes no official region abbreviations, CAF examples use the full region ID
• Short codes exist to survive tight length limits like the storage account’s 24 characters
• Pick one scheme, document it, and derive it in IaC rather than typing it per resource

AzureNamer applies these region codes automatically and lets you toggle any name between the abbreviated and full region form. The abbreviations cheat sheet covers the resource type prefixes that pair with them.