It’s no secret that League of Legends has millions of active players worldwide. But in order to accommodate them all playing at the same time, the game must have several servers located around the world.
The chances are you’ve played on at least 1 or 2 different regions during your time playing LoL, but have you ever stopped and thought about the other servers?
Currently, there are 13 different LoL servers available ranging from Europe to America to Asia to even the public beta environment. With each server having its own community and ranking system there are often disputes between which server is the hardest to rank in.
To give you an insight into all the different LoL servers available, we’ll be exploring each one individually and seeing what it has to offer.
The first on our list of LoL servers is the Brazilian server. Often abbreviated to just BR the Brazilian server was launched on 13th September 2012 and you guessed it, covers all of Brazil. Players on the BR server primarily speak Portuguese as their primary language. If you only know English then it’s probably not a good idea to transfer your account over to this region.
The server itself is located in located in São Paulo, Brazil which means everyone in the area will get super low ping and should have no issues when playing the game.
The second server on our list of LoL servers is the Europe Nordic & East server or EUNE for short. Launched on 12th July 2010, the server covers plenty of countries including, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Poland. That means it’s probably no surprise when players speak several languages as well ranging from Greek to English to Polish and Romanian.
The server itself is located in Frankfurt, Germany which is slightly odd considering Germany is not included in this server. Our guess is it’s to do with their vast network infrastructure which makes them the best choice to host the server.
Next up is the highly popular EUW or Europe West for those not up to date with their abbreviations. Launched at the same time as the EUNE server in July 2010 the server covers a whole range of countries from the UK to Germany to Spain. This also means that there is a whole array of different languages spoken such as English, German and Spanish. Although the primary language is certainly English.
The server itself is located in Amsterdam which is a great middle ground that covers all of the nearby countries. However, if you do play from Italy you might experience higher ping due to the distance.
Venture south of America and you’ll find the Latin America North server. Covering regions such as Mexico, Panama and Cuba if you thought League of Legends wasn’t big in Latin America, then think again. Also referred to as the LAN server, it was launched on 5th June 2013 with the majority of players on the server speaking only Spanish.
If you’re thinking of moving to this server to climb the ladder, then communication with your teammates might be a problem. Unlike the name would suggest, the physical server for this region is actually located in Miami, Florida.
If you go south of Latin America North, then you enter Latin America South. Covering countries such as Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, the server is basically the sister to Latin America North. Launched at the same time on June 5th 2013, the primary language for this server is also Spanish. However, unlike the LAN server, the LAS server is actually located in the same region as the areas it serves. The server can be found in Chile so expect excellent latency no matter which part of the region you are playing from.
Located in Chicago, Illinois, the server contains mostly players who speak English as their primary language. Since players are very similar to players on the EUW server, many players often make smurf accounts in other regions to climb both ladders at the same time.
Considering Australia and New Zealand are on the other side of the world, it’s no surprise that they have their own server regions. Hailed the Oceania server or OCE for short, the server covers just Australia and New Zealand. Launched on June 28th 2013, although the server hasn't been out for very long it has been welcomed by many players. Before the server was released, many players were forced to play on the Asia servers as the other English-speaking regions were too far away. This lead to huge language barrier problems and incredibly high pings.
However, with the release of the Oceania server players can now play with low ping and other English speaking players with ease. Hosted in Sydney, Australia, players will never have to endure playing with 9 other non-English speaking players again.
Launched on 17th April 2013, the Russian server, or RU for short covers the entirety of Russia and is exclusive to that country (similar to the Brazilian server). As you may have well guessed, most players only speak Russian, but that doesn’t stop them from having fun. The server itself is not actually hosted in Russia which might seem strange, but we think it's something to do with political reasons.
The server itself is hosted in Munich which isn’t too far away but thanks to Germany’s great networking infrastructure, allows players to play with relatively low pings.
Continuing with our list of LoL servers we have the Turkish server or TR for short. Launched in September 2012, Riot decided to release this server when they realised they had a large number of Turkish-speaking players that needed a place to play. Instead of mixing them with another server, they decided the demand was high enough to have its own server.
The strange thing about this server is that although it covers Turkey, the server itself is hosted in Dublin, Ireland. We’re not exactly sure if it’s true or why it’s not Germany instead, but the current location definitely points to Dublin.
Hosted in Tokyo, Japan, is the Japanese server or JP as it is often referred to. Having only been recently released in March 2016, many players had to play on the other Asia servers which quickly became crowded and swamped with Asian players.
To match up players better, Riot decided to give Japan their very own server where Japanese speaking players could play. This move was praised by players and allows gamers to play with other like-minded people that speak Japanese. After all, Asia is a huge continent with many different languages.
Based in South East Asia the SEA server covers countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Released on July 17th 2010, there server contains many players who speak a variety of different languages. The SEA server is 1 of only 2 servers that are not ran by Riot. SEA is, in fact, ran by Garena, a Riot Games partner.
In the future Riot have mentioned that they would like to create their own South East Asian server splitting it into the regions. Some users actually prefer the Garena servers due to not recieving buggy updates, a good connection, less down time and a strong local community, however they also recieve patches, skins and champions later.
Covering the South of Korea only, the KR server was launched in December 2011 and contains players who only speak Korean. One of the most popular and highly populated LoL servers out there, many professional players including the members of SKT play on here.
To play on the Korean Server you actually need a SIN, which can be used to control your internet access if you are under 18. To get a valid SIN you need to have a Korean citizenship. This is why it's so hard to actually buy a Korean League of Legends account.
The Chinese server, the main of which (server 1 (电一 网一)) is based in Shanghai, is split into 27 servers spread around the country. Each of these servers hosts around 650,000 people which means the China server is easily the most populated League of Legends server.
This is also the newest League of Legends server and has a unique "Super Server" where users who are Diamond 1 or above can create an account, and recieve an instant level 30 and many champions. This is mostly used as a training ground for professional and high elo players. It's not currently possible to transfer to the Chinese servers from any other server.
Although this is not technically a server region, it is a server so we thought we would include it anyway! Based in Los Angeles, California, this test environment has been around since the dawn of time. Riot use this as their primary testing facility to test new patches, champions and updates. If the first servers were launched in October of 2009, then this server must have been around way before that.
Still used today by Riot employees and players, the server is great for exploring new content. However, be warned, if you don’t live in North America then you’re probably going to get really high ping.
Now you know everything about the different LoL servers, which one is the most popular and which has the most players? If you want to find out more, be sure to read our post on how many players are on each LoL server.
Choosing your server is very important. Ping quality is largely determined by distance from the server but there are other factors involved. If you need help fixing your ping check our dedicated ping fix guide.
