FAA administrative regions
The Federal Aviation Administration divides the United States into nine administrative regions. Each region's regional office oversees airport certification, safety inspections, and air-traffic-control coordination for the airports inside its territory.
Alaskan Region
AK
Central Region
IA, KS, MO, NE
Eastern Region
DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WV
Great Lakes Region
IL, IN, MI, MN, ND, OH, SD, WI
New England Region
CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT
Northwest Mountain Region
CO, ID, MT, OR, UT, WA, WY
Southern Region
AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN, PR, VI
Southwest Region
AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
Western-Pacific Region
AZ, CA, HI, NV, GU, AS, MP
How the FAA region system works
The FAA's nine-region structure dates from the agency's reorganization following the formation of the modern Federal Aviation Administration. Each region operates a regional office (the "RO") that handles certification of airport operating certificates under FAR Part 139, oversight of airport-development grants under the Airport Improvement Program, safety inspections, and coordination with the air-traffic-control facilities, the towers, TRACONs, and ARTCCs, physically inside the region's boundaries.
From a traveler's point of view, the region you are flying into rarely matters directly, your boarding pass shows an IATA code, not a region code. From a planner's point of view, however, region matters quite a bit: regional offices set local guidance on noise abatement, slot assignments at congested airports, and the application process for federal airport-improvement grants.