# Specify a table location in Amazon S3
<a name="tables-location-format"></a>

When you run a `CREATE TABLE` query in Athena, Athena registers your table with the AWS Glue Data Catalog, which is where Athena stores your metadata.

To specify the path to your data in Amazon S3, use the `LOCATION` property in your `CREATE TABLE` statement, as in the following example:

```
CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE `test_table`(
...
)
ROW FORMAT ...
STORED AS INPUTFORMAT ...
OUTPUTFORMAT ...
LOCATION s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/folder/
```
+ For information about naming buckets, see [Bucket restrictions and limitations](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/BucketRestrictions.html) in the *Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide*.
+ For information about using folders in Amazon S3, see [Using folders](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/using-folders.html) in the *Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.* 

The `LOCATION` in Amazon S3 specifies *all* of the files representing your table. 

**Important**  
Athena reads *all* data stored in the Amazon S3 folder that you specify. If you have data that you do *not* want Athena to read, do not store that data in the same Amazon S3 folder as the data that you do want Athena to read.

When you specify the `LOCATION` in the `CREATE TABLE` statement, use the following guidelines:
+ Use a trailing slash.
+ You can use a path to an Amazon S3 folder or an Amazon S3 access point alias. For information about Amazon S3 access point aliases, see [Using a bucket-style alias for your access point](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/access-points-alias.html) in the *Amazon S3 User Guide*.

 **Use**:

```
s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/folder/
```

```
s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket-metadata-s3alias/folder/
```

Do not use any of the following items for specifying the `LOCATION` for your data.
+ Do not use filenames, underscores, wildcards, or glob patterns for specifying file locations.
+ Do not add the full HTTP notation, such as `s3.amazon.com` to the Amazon S3 bucket path.
+ Do not use empty folders like `//` in the path, as follows: `S3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/folder//folder/`. 
+ Do not use paths like the following:

  ```
  s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket
  s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/*
  s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/mySpecialFile.dat
  s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/prefix/filename.csv
  s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket.s3.amazon.com
  S3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/prefix//prefix/
  arn:aws:s3:::amzn-s3-demo-bucket/prefix
  s3://arn:aws:s3:<region>:<account_id>:accesspoint/<accesspointname>
  https://<accesspointname>-<number>.s3-accesspoint.<region>.amazonaws.com
  ```