# AWS Route 53 > Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) web service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). - Source: https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-route-53/ - Published: 2024-01-11 - Updated: 2026-10-05 - Author: Javier Ruiz Jiménez (https://www.javierruizjimenez.com/) - Site: IT Wonder Lab (https://www.itwonderlab.com/) --- ## Amazon DNS Service Amazon Route 53 is a scalable and highly available Domain Name System (DNS) web service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is designed to route end-user requests to globally distributed endpoints, such as web applications or resources, and effectively connects user requests to the corresponding AWS resources. ### Domain Registration Route 53 allows you to register new domain names or transfer existing ones. Route 53 can also be used as the DNS service of domains registered with a different registrar. ### DNS Service It serves as a fully managed and highly reliable DNS service, translating human-readable domain names into IP addresses that can be understood by computers. ### Hosted Zones A **hosted zone** is a container of the DNS records of a domain. Route 53 supports public and private (internal) hosted zones. This segregation helps maintain security and proper server hostname practices. #### Public Hosted Zones - Public hosted zones are used for routing traffic on the public internet. They are typically associated with domain names that are publicly accessible, such as your company’s website or a public-facing API. - The DNS records in a public hosted zone are accessible from the internet, allowing users worldwide to resolve domain names to IP addresses. - Public hosted zones are often associated with domain names that are registered through Route 53 or transferred to Route 53 from another registrar. #### Private (Internal) Hosted Zones - Private hosted zones are used for internal domain resolution within an Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). They are **not accessible from the public internet**. - DNS records in a private hosted zone are accessible only within the specified VPCs. This is useful for internal applications, services, or resources that do not need public exposure. - Private hosted zones are not associated with domain registration. They are solely used for internal DNS resolution within the AWS network. ### Resolver Route 53 Resolver answers the DNS queries of the resources inside a [VPC](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-vpc/). Private hosted zones take precedence over public DNS, and Resolver endpoints connect the VPC DNS with on-premises networks. ### Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) Route 53 supports DNSSEC to enhance the security of DNS data and prevent malicious activities, such as DNS spoofing. ### Health Checks Route 53 enables health checks for AWS resources, such as EC2 instances or load balancers, and automatically reroutes traffic to healthy endpoints in case of detected issues. ### Traffic Routing and Load Balancing It supports traffic management through routing policies such as simple, weighted, latency-based, geolocation, failover and multivalue answer routing, allowing traffic distribution across different endpoints based on various criteria. ### Alias Records An **alias record** points a name, including the zone apex (`example.com`), to an AWS resource such as a [load balancer](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-elastic-load-balancing/), a [CloudFront](https://www.itwonderlab.com/amazon-cloudfront/) distribution or an [S3](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-s3/) website. Alias queries to AWS resources are free and Route 53 follows IP address changes automatically, which a CNAME cannot do at the apex of a zone. ### Integration with AWS Services Route 53 seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as [Amazon S3](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-s3/), [CloudFront](https://www.itwonderlab.com/amazon-cloudfront/), [Elastic Load Balancing (ELB)](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-elastic-load-balancing/), [API Gateway](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-api-gateway/) and more, facilitating the management of DNS records for these resources. ### Global Anycast Network Route 53 operates on a global anycast network, ensuring low-latency and high-performance DNS responses by serving DNS requests from the nearest geographically distributed location. ### Pricing A monthly charge per hosted zone, plus a charge per million queries (alias queries to AWS resources are free), health checks and domain registration fees. See the [Route 53 pricing](https://aws.amazon.com/route53/pricing/). ### With Terraform The resources are `aws_route53_zone`, `aws_route53_record`, `aws_route53_delegation_set` and `aws_route53_health_check`. See tutorials: - [AWS with Terraform: The Essential Guide (14/21) – AWS Route 53 (DNS)](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-with-terraform-tutorial-aws-route-53/) - [AWS with Terraform: The Essential Guide (16/21) – AWS Load Balancers](https://www.itwonderlab.com/aws-terraform-tutorial-aws-load-balancers/): alias record and certificate validation - [AWS Route 53, AMI Lookup and EC2 Creation with Terraform (3/5)](https://www.itwonderlab.com/terraform-route-53-ami-lookup/)