This page explains the concept of bucket location and the different locations where you can create buckets. A bucket's location defines the physical place where object data in the bucket resides.
To learn how to set the location for your bucket, see Create storage buckets.
Key concepts
You permanently set a geographic location for storing your object data when you create a bucket.
- You cannot change a bucket's location after it's created, but you can move your data to a bucket in a different location.
You can select from the following location types:
A region is a specific geographic place, such as São Paulo.
A dual-region is a specific pair of regions, such as Tokyo and Osaka.
A multi-region is a large geographic area, such as the United States, that contains two or more geographic places.
All Cloud Storage data is redundant across at least two zones within at least one geographic place as soon as you upload it.
Additionally, objects stored in a multi-region or dual-region are geo-redundant. Objects that are geo-redundant are stored redundantly in at least two separate geographic places separated by at least 100 miles.
Default replication is designed to provide geo-redundancy for 99.9% of newly written objects within a target of one hour. Newly written objects include uploads, rewrites, copies, and compositions.
Turbo replication provides geo-redundancy for all newly written objects within a target of 15 minutes. Applicable only for dual-region buckets.
Cloud Storage stores object data in the selected location in accordance with the Service Specific Terms.
Location considerations
A good location balances latency, availability, and bandwidth costs for data consumers.
Use a region to help optimize latency and network bandwidth for data consumers, such as analytics pipelines, that are run in the same region.
- Regions are particularly good choices for short-lived data since there are no data replication charges assessed in regional locations.
Use a dual-region when you want similar performance advantages as regions, but also want the higher availability that comes with being geo-redundant.
While traditional storage models often rely on primary and secondary geographic locations, dual-regions simplify the business continuity and disaster recovery process by eliminating the need to redirect network usage between primary and secondary locations. Cloud Storage always understands the current state of the bucket and will transparently serve objects from either region as required. Dual-region buckets are designed to have a recovery time objective (RTO) of zero and temporary regional failures are normally invisible to users.
Dual-regions are particularly well suited for high performance analytics workloads which can run active-active in both regions simultaneously. This means users can read and write data in both regions to the same bucket and experience high performance. Dual-regions are strongly consistent so that the view of data is always the same regardless of where the reads and writes are taking place.
Use turbo replication when you want a shorter, more predictable recovery point objective (RPO). This feature is designed to asynchronously replicate newly written and rewritten Cloud Storage objects to a separate region within a target of 15 minutes.
Dual-regions give users the power to choose where their data is stored to help address compliance requirements. For example, addressing industry-specific requirements regarding the physical distance between copies of the data.
Use a multi-region when you want to serve content to data consumers that are outside of the Google network and distributed across large geographic areas.
Generally, you should store your data in a location that is convenient or contains the majority of the users of your data. For instance, for EU data you might choose an EU bucket, and for US data you might choose a US bucket.
See the data storage pricing table for storage costs in each location.
Compute Engine VM notes
- Storing data in the same region as your Compute Engine VM instances can provide better performance. This advantage applies to both regions and dual-regions.
- While you can't specify a Compute Engine zone as a bucket location, all Compute Engine VM instances in zones within a given region have similar performance when accessing buckets in that region.
Available locations
The following sections list the Cloud Storage locations available for storing your data.
Regions
All regions are at least 100 miles apart.
| Continent | Region Name | Region Description | |
|---|---|---|---|
| North America | |||
NORTHAMERICA-NORTHEAST1 |
Montréal |
 Low CO2
|
|
NORTHAMERICA-NORTHEAST2 |
Toronto |
Low CO2
|
|
US-CENTRAL1 |
Iowa |
Low CO2
|
|
US-EAST1 |
South Carolina | ||
US-EAST4 |
Northern Virginia | ||
US-EAST5 |
Columbus | ||
US-SOUTH1 |
Dallas | ||
US-WEST1 |
Oregon |
Low CO2 |
|
US-WEST2 |
Los Angeles | ||
US-WEST3 |
Salt Lake City | ||
US-WEST4 |
Las Vegas | ||
| South America | |||
SOUTHAMERICA-EAST1 |
São Paulo |
Low CO2
|
|
SOUTHAMERICA-WEST1 |
Santiago | ||
| Europe | |||
EUROPE-CENTRAL2 |
Warsaw | ||
EUROPE-NORTH1 |
Finland |
Low CO2
|
|
EUROPE-SOUTHWEST1 |
Madrid |
Low CO2
|
|
EUROPE-WEST1 |
Belgium |
Low CO2
|
|
EUROPE-WEST2 |
London | ||
EUROPE-WEST3 |
Frankfurt | ||
EUROPE-WEST4 |
Netherlands | ||
EUROPE-WEST6 |
Zürich |
Low CO2
|
|
EUROPE-WEST8 |
Milan | ||
EUROPE-WEST9 |
Paris |
Low CO2
|
|
| Asia | |||
ASIA-EAST1 |
Taiwan | ||
ASIA-EAST2 |
Hong Kong | ||
ASIA-NORTHEAST1 |
Tokyo | ||
ASIA-NORTHEAST2 |
Osaka | ||
ASIA-NORTHEAST3 |
Seoul | ||
ASIA-SOUTH1 |
Mumbai | ||
ASIA-SOUTH2 |
Delhi | ||
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1 |
Singapore | ||
| Indonesia | |||
ASIA-SOUTHEAST2 |
Jakarta | ||
| Australia | |||
AUSTRALIA-SOUTHEAST1 |
Sydney | ||
AUSTRALIA-SOUTHEAST2 |
Melbourne |
Dual-regions
The following regions are currently supported:
| Continent | Region Name | Region Description |
|---|---|---|
| North America | ||
US-CENTRAL1 |
Iowa | |
US-EAST1 |
South Carolina | |
US-EAST4 |
Northern Virginia | |
US-WEST1 |
Oregon | |
| Asia | ||
ASIA-EAST1 |
Taiwan | |
ASIA-SOUTHEAST1 |
Singapore | |
| Europe | ||
EUROPE-NORTH1 |
Finland | |
EUROPE-WEST1 |
Belgium | |
EUROPE-WEST4 |
Netherlands |
Predefined dual-regions
The following predefined dual-regions are also supported. For more information, see Create a dual-region bucket.
| Dual-Region Name | Dual-Region Description |
|---|---|
NAM4 |
Iowa and South Carolina |
ASIA1 |
Tokyo and Osaka |
EUR4 |
Finland and Netherlands |
Multi-regions
| Multi-Region Name | Multi-Region Description |
|---|---|
ASIA |
Data centers in Asia |
EU |
Data centers within member states of the European Union* |
US |
Data centers in the United States |
* Object data added to a bucket in the EU multi-region is not
stored in the EUROPE-WEST2 (London) or EUROPE-WEST6 (Zurich) regions.
What's next
- Create a bucket.
- Explore the storage classes available in Cloud Storage.
- Learn about Cloud Storage pricing.
- View all the Google Cloud services available in locations worldwide.
- Explore additional location-based concepts, such as zones, that apply to other Google Cloud services.
Try it for yourself
If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how Cloud Storage performs in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.
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