When you create a League of Legends account for the first time, the game assigns you to a specific server right away – and that choice stays with you for years, because it affects who you play with, what ping you get and which language the game speaks to you in. Players in Europe aren’t all on one server either: Czech, Slovak or Polish players, for example, don’t share a server with Germans or the French, and plenty of people don’t even know why. This article explains how League of Legends is divided into servers, why players from Central and Eastern Europe (almost certainly) end up on EUNE, how to switch the game language and what moving your account elsewhere involves, for example when you move abroad.
How LoL servers are divided
League of Legends runs worldwide on several separate servers that don’t share players or account economies with each other – you’re always on just one of them, and you normally never meet players from other servers at all. The reason is physical: a server has to be geographically close to the players connecting to it, otherwise almost every match would have unplayably high ping.
The main servers include North America (NA), two European servers (EUW and EUNE, covered below), plus the Russian, Turkish, Brazilian, Oceanic, Korean and Japanese servers and several more covering different parts of Asia and Latin America. Which server the game offers you when you create an account depends on where you connect from – and that’s exactly why Czech and Slovak players are automatically routed to the European server closer to them, not to the North American or an Asian one.
The split into servers has a direct impact on ping, meaning how quickly your commands travel to the server and back. If you play on a server far from your physical location, you’ll notice delayed responses from abilities and movement – in fights decided by fractions of a second, that’s a noticeable difference. Servers and connection are covered in detail in a separate article on ping and lag in LoL; here it’s enough to know that choosing a server isn’t just about who you play with, but also about how smoothly the game will run for you.
EUNE and EUW: where the border lies and who ends up on EUNE
In League of Legends, Europe is split into two separate servers, not one shared one. EUW (Europe West) runs on servers in Amsterdam and covers Western Europe – the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and similar countries. EUNE (Europe Nordic & East) runs out of Frankfurt and is meant for Northern and Central/Eastern Europe – including Poland, Hungary, and also the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The split wasn’t based on language or on how culturally close the countries are – it’s purely a matter of distance to the data center and the distribution of the player base at the time Riot set up the servers. That’s why, when you register for the first time from the Czech Republic or Slovakia, the game automatically places you on EUNE, not EUW, because that’s the server closest to you.
In practice, this means EUNE players normally don’t meet players from Germany, France or Britain – they’re on a different server, with a different economy, a different ladder and partly a different gaming culture too. The community has long described EUNE as somewhat smaller than EUW, but with a notably aggressive player base in ranked games, especially in solo queue.
| Server | Data center | Coverage |
|---|---|---|
| EUW (Europe West) | Amsterdam | Western Europe – Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and surrounding countries |
| EUNE (Europe Nordic & East) | Frankfurt | Northern and Central/Eastern Europe – including the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Baltics |
The split also changes over time; it isn’t set once and for all. Russia and some countries of the former Soviet Union used to belong to EUNE before Riot carved out a separate server for them – similar adjustments to the borders between regions happen from time to time elsewhere in the world too, usually in response to how the player base in a given area grows or shrinks. For the Czech Republic and Slovakia, however, placement under EUNE has remained stable for a long time, and there’s no reason to expect it to change any time soon.
How to check and switch the game language
Unlike most games we write about on this site, League of Legends is fully localized well beyond English and a few major world languages – its text and menus are available even in smaller languages such as Czech. It’s an exception worth mentioning, because plenty of other online games don’t offer interfaces in smaller languages at all.
You switch the in-game text language through the Riot Client, not directly in the League of Legends client itself. Open the Riot Client, click your profile icon, go to settings, open the League of Legends tab and find the game text language option there. After you pick a language, the game downloads the necessary localization files and asks you to restart before the change takes full effect.
The list of available languages also depends on which server you’re on – regional languages such as Czech typically only appear on the servers they’re intended for, so on the European servers, including EUNE, you’ll rarely run into availability problems.
Moving your account to another server
If you move out of your server’s range – for example from Europe to the US for work – you don’t have to create a new account from scratch. Riot offers an official region transfer directly in the client store, which lets you move your existing account, progress included, to another server.
The transfer isn’t free or instant, though. You pay for it with Riot Points, it’s a one-way operation, and after the transfer there’s a cooldown period of several months before you can move the account elsewhere again. What carries over is mainly your collection – champions, skins and most items in your inventory – while your ranked position, match history and honor level don’t transfer, so in those respects you start over after the move.
Around the end of a ranked season, transfers are usually temporarily blocked so that Riot can avoid complications with handing out season rewards – if you’re planning a transfer, it pays to schedule it outside that period, not at the last minute before the season ends.
What you can’t take with you from EUNE, wherever you go
Even if you never transfer regions, there are situations where you’ll hit the limits of your server – for example when you want to play with a friend who’s on a different server, or you want to see what your account looks like from another region. It can’t be done without an official transfer: an account is always tied to one specific server, and you simply can’t log in with it from elsewhere.
If you want to play on several servers at once – for example because you have friends scattered across different countries – the only way is to create a second, separate account on the target server. Progress, collection and ranking aren’t shared between such accounts in any way; it’s essentially two separate games under the same name.
It’s worth noting that this restriction doesn’t apply only to League of Legends itself – it also covers related Riot games on the same account, such as Teamfight Tactics. Those are tied to the same regional server too, so a transfer or a second account handles both games at once, not each one separately.
FAQ
Because EUNE is the server geographically closest to the Czech Republic and Slovakia – it’s based in Frankfurt and covers Northern and Central/Eastern Europe. EUW in Amsterdam is meant for Western Europe.
Yes, and not only in the major world languages: it’s fully localized even into smaller languages such as Czech, which is an exception among games. You switch the text and menus directly in the Riot Client settings.
In the Riot Client, click your profile icon, open settings, then the League of Legends tab and the game text language option. After you pick a language, the game downloads the localization files and asks you to restart.
Yes, through the official paid region transfer in the client store. Mainly your collection of champions and skins carries over; your ranked position and match history stay on the original server.
You pay in Riot Points, and it’s a one-time, one-way purchase with a cooldown before another transfer. Check the exact current price directly in the client store, because it changes over time.
No, an account is always tied to a single server. To play on a second server without an official transfer, you need a separate, new account.
Details verified on 28 August 2026 for patch 26.18. Once you’ve sorted out your server and language, check out ranks in LoL so you know what you’re getting into on your server, or the champion overview so you have someone to play. If you have a regular group on the same server, also try Clash, the team tournament built right into the client. The full hub overview is in the League of Legends section.