US West Cloud Region Comparison — Oregon, California, and Beyond
Compare US West cloud regions across AWS, Azure, and GCP. Coverage of Oregon, California, and central US options with latency and service details.
Detailed Explanation
US West — West Coast and Central US Regions
US West regions serve the western United States and are popular choices for serving Pacific-facing traffic, gaming workloads, and as a disaster recovery pair for US East deployments.
Region Code Mapping
| Provider | Oregon/Washington | California | Central |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | us-west-2 (Oregon) |
us-west-1 (N. California) |
— |
| Azure | westus2 (Washington) |
westus (California) |
centralus (Iowa) |
| GCP | us-west1 (Oregon) |
us-west2 (Los Angeles) |
us-central1 (Iowa) |
Oregon / Washington
The Pacific Northwest is a popular choice due to low energy costs (hydroelectric power) and cool climate (reducing cooling costs). AWS us-west-2 has 4 AZs and is one of the most feature-complete AWS regions after us-east-1. GCP us-west1 and Azure westus2 both offer 3 AZs.
California
California regions are geographically closest to the San Francisco Bay Area tech hub. AWS us-west-1 has 3 AZs but fewer services than us-west-2. GCP us-west2 in Los Angeles and Azure westus serve Southern and Northern California respectively.
Central US
For workloads that need to minimize latency to both coasts, central US regions in Iowa offer a geographic middle ground. Azure centralus and GCP us-central1 are both located in Iowa, with GCP offering 4 zones — its highest AZ count in the US.
Cross-Region Latency
Within the US, latency between East and West regions is typically 60-80ms. Central regions reduce this to about 30-40ms to either coast, making them suitable for applications serving the entire continental US.
Use Case
Planning a multi-region US architecture where a West Coast or Central US region is needed as a failover pair for US East, or to minimize latency for Pacific-facing users.
Try It — Cloud Region Comparison
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