Sovereignty and Geography Groups

Richard Cheney • 21 Oct 2025

An interesting little Azure Update popped up last week, as the Locations API will be switching its output for the UK, with the Geography Group changing from “Europe” to “UK”.

Generally Available: Locations API Update for UK Azure Regions

To align with evolving compliance and regulatory requirements, Azure is updating the geographyGroup and regionalDisplayName metadata for UK-based regions in the Locations API.

These changes will take effect this month, October 2025, and will apply to the existing UK South and UK West regions. It will introduce a new geographyGroup value: “UK”, and the regionalDisplayName prefix will also be updated from “Europe” to “UK”.

What customers will see:

Updated values in Locations API responses for UK-based regions
Revised region names in Azure Portal region selection menus

Here is how it looks today:

az account list-locations --query "[?starts_with(name, 'uk')]" --output jsonc

[
  {
    "availabilityZoneMappings": [
      {
        "logicalZone": "1",
        "physicalZone": "uksouth-az2"
      },
      {
        "logicalZone": "2",
        "physicalZone": "uksouth-az1"
      },
      {
        "logicalZone": "3",
        "physicalZone": "uksouth-az3"
      }
    ],
    "displayName": "UK South",
    "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/locations/uksouth",
    "metadata": {
      "geography": "United Kingdom",
      "geographyGroup": "Europe",
      "latitude": "50.941",
      "longitude": "-0.799",
      "pairedRegion": [
        {
          "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/locations/ukwest",
          "name": "ukwest"
        }
      ],
      "physicalLocation": "London",
      "regionCategory": "Recommended",
      "regionType": "Physical"
    },
    "name": "uksouth",
    "regionalDisplayName": "(Europe) UK South",
    "type": "Region"
  },
  {
    "displayName": "United Kingdom",
    "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/locations/uk",
    "metadata": {
      "regionCategory": "Other",
      "regionType": "Logical"
    },
    "name": "uk",
    "regionalDisplayName": "United Kingdom",
    "type": "Region"
  },
  {
    "displayName": "UK West",
    "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/locations/ukwest",
    "metadata": {
      "geography": "United Kingdom",
      "geographyGroup": "Europe",
      "latitude": "53.427",
      "longitude": "-3.084",
      "pairedRegion": [
        {
          "id": "/subscriptions/73568139-5c52-4066-a406-3e8533bb0f15/locations/uksouth",
          "name": "uksouth"
        }
      ],
      "physicalLocation": "Cardiff",
      "regionCategory": "Other",
      "regionType": "Physical"
    },
    "name": "ukwest",
    "regionalDisplayName": "(Europe) UK West",
    "type": "Region"
  }
]

The geographyGroup in the metadata is gaining more importance as data and operation sovereignty controls tighten for public cloud, with the EU Data Boundary relating to the EU and EFTA regions.

Here is another useful command that shows all of the current physical regions as a table sorted by geographyGroup and geography.

az account list-locations --query "sort_by(sort_by(sort_by([?metadata.regionType == 'Physical'].{geographyGroup:metadata.geographyGroup, geography:metadata.geography, location:metadata.physicalLocation, displayName:displayName, name:name}, &displayName), &geography), &geographyGroup)" --output table

Feel free to check out the JMESPATH page for the syntax of the query above. Effectively it filters the array where metadata.regionType is physical, selectively creates new objects, sorts by displayName, then geography, then geographyGroup and outputs as a table.

(Copilot can be very useful in constructing more complex queries…)

Here is the resulting table in Markdown form.

GeographyGroup	Geography	Location	DisplayName	Name
Africa	South Africa	Johannesburg	South Africa North	southafricanorth
Africa	South Africa	Cape Town	South Africa West	southafricawest
Asia Pacific	Asia Pacific	Hong Kong	East Asia	eastasia
Asia Pacific	Asia Pacific	Singapore	Southeast Asia	southeastasia
Asia Pacific	Australia	Canberra	Australia Central	australiacentral
Asia Pacific	Australia	Canberra	Australia Central 2	australiacentral2
Asia Pacific	Australia	New South Wales	Australia East	australiaeast
Asia Pacific	Australia	Victoria	Australia Southeast	australiasoutheast
Asia Pacific	India	Pune	Central India	centralindia
Asia Pacific	India	Nagpur	Jio India Central	jioindiacentral
Asia Pacific	India	Jamnagar	Jio India West	jioindiawest
Asia Pacific	India	Chennai	South India	southindia
Asia Pacific	India	Mumbai	West India	westindia
Asia Pacific	Indonesia	Jakarta	Indonesia Central	indonesiacentral
Asia Pacific	Japan	Tokyo, Saitama	Japan East	japaneast
Asia Pacific	Japan	Osaka	Japan West	japanwest
Asia Pacific	Korea	Seoul	Korea Central	koreacentral
Asia Pacific	Korea	Busan	Korea South	koreasouth
Asia Pacific	Malaysia	Kuala Lumpur	Malaysia West	malaysiawest
Asia Pacific	New Zealand	Auckland	New Zealand North	newzealandnorth
Canada	Canada	Toronto	Canada Central	canadacentral
Canada	Canada	Quebec	Canada East	canadaeast
Europe	Austria	Vienna	Austria East	austriaeast
Europe	Europe	Ireland	North Europe	northeurope
Europe	Europe	Netherlands	West Europe	westeurope
Europe	France	Paris	France Central	francecentral
Europe	France	Marseille	France South	francesouth
Europe	Germany	Berlin	Germany North	germanynorth
Europe	Germany	Frankfurt	Germany West Central	germanywestcentral
Europe	Italy	Milan	Italy North	italynorth
Europe	Norway	Norway	Norway East	norwayeast
Europe	Norway	Norway	Norway West	norwaywest
Europe	Poland	Warsaw	Poland Central	polandcentral
Europe	Spain	Madrid	Spain Central	spaincentral
Europe	Sweden	Gävle	Sweden Central	swedencentral
Europe	Switzerland	Zurich	Switzerland North	switzerlandnorth
Europe	Switzerland	Geneva	Switzerland West	switzerlandwest
Europe	United Kingdom	London	UK South	uksouth
Europe	United Kingdom	Cardiff	UK West	ukwest
Mexico	Mexico	Querétaro State	Mexico Central	mexicocentral
Middle East	Israel	Israel	Israel Central	israelcentral
Middle East	Qatar	Doha	Qatar Central	qatarcentral
Middle East	UAE	Abu Dhabi	UAE Central	uaecentral
Middle East	UAE	Dubai	UAE North	uaenorth
South America	Brazil	Sao Paulo State	Brazil South	brazilsouth
South America	Brazil	Rio	Brazil Southeast	brazilsoutheast
South America	Chile	Santiago	Chile Central	chilecentral
US	United States	Iowa	Central US	centralus
US	United States	Virginia	East US	eastus
US	United States	Virginia	East US 2	eastus2
US	United States	Illinois	North Central US	northcentralus
US	United States	Texas	South Central US	southcentralus
US	United States	Wyoming	West Central US	westcentralus
US	United States	California	West US	westus
US	United States	Washington	West US 2	westus2
US	United States	Phoenix	West US 3	westus3

You can expect to see a few more posts from me relating to sovereignty over the next few months!

Table of Contents

Sovereignty and Geography Groups

Table of Contents