4.57. Latency Routing

What is Latency-Based Routing in Route 53?

A DNS routing policy that directs users to the AWS Region with the lowest latency, as estimated by AWS.

What is the primary use case?

To improve performance and user experience by routing users to the nearest (lowest latency) AWS region.

How is latency determined?

AWS uses an internal latency database, updated in the background, which estimates latency from user IP to AWS regions.

How many records per name per region can be used?

You can have one record per region per name (e.g., one www record per AWS region).

What kind of records are supported?

Typically A or AAAA records with region mappings (e.g., us-east-1, ap-southeast-2).

What happens if the lowest latency endpoint is unhealthy?

Route 53 returns the next best (lowest latency) healthy record, if health checks are enabled.

Can this policy be combined with health checks?

✅ Yes, health checks can be associated with latency-based records.

Does AWS use real-time latency measurements?

❌ No, AWS uses a precomputed latency database, which may not reflect sudden or local network disruptions.

Is this suitable for global applications?

✅ Yes, it's ideal for apps with users across multiple geographies.

How does Route 53 determine the user's location?

It uses IP-based geolocation to infer the user's approximate physical region.