Added new blog post (#47)

content/posts/2023-03-24-use-powershell-to-retrieve-azure-location-information.md

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+---
+categories:
+  - Microsoft Azure
+  - PowerShell
+date: 2023-03-24T18:30:00+01:00
+draft: false
+lastMod: 2023-03-24T18:30:00+01:00
+tags:
+  - Microsoft Azure
+  - PowerShell
+title: Use PowerShell to retrieve Azure location information
+---
+
+In this post, I'll show you how to retrieve Azure location names using
+PowerShell; specifically, using the Azure Az PowerShell module.
+
+## Install the Azure Az PowerShell module
+
+We're going to follow [this guide on Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/azure/install-az-ps)
+to install the Azure Az PowerShell module.
+
+I'm going to assume that you have the latest version of PowerShell installed.
+If you don't, you can follow [this guide on Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/installing-powershell).
+
+Run the following command in a PowerShell session:
+
+```powershell
+Install-Module -Name Az -Scope CurrentUser -Repository PsGallery -Force
+```
+
+You'll need to authenticate Azure PowerShell by signing in with your Azure
+credentials.
+
+```powershell
+Connect-AzAccount
+```
+
+## Using the `Get-AzLocation` cmdlet
+
+You can run the `Get-AzLocation` cmdlet without any filtering to return
+information such as latitude, longitude, physical location, region type, etc.
+Here, we're going to filter to retrieve _only_ the location names, e.g. the
+`Location` of each object returned.
+
+```powershell
+Get-AzLocation | Select Location
+```
+
+This will return a formatted table containing only the 'unfriendly' version of
+each location, e.g. 'eastus', 'uksouth', etc. If you're looking to include
+Azure location information in a Bicep file, for example, chances are that this
+is the value that you're looking for.
+
+```powershell
+Location
+--------
+eastus
+eastus2
+```
+
+If you wanted to expand your returned results to also include the 'friendly'
+version of each location, you can.
+
+```powershell
+Get-AzLocation | Select DisplayName,Location
+```
+
+This will return a formatted table containing the 'friendly' and 'unfriendly'
+version of each location.
+
+```powershell
+DisplayName          Location
+-----------          --------
+East US              eastus
+East US 2            eastus2
+```
+
+## Further reading
+
+Further information on the `Get-AzLocation` cmdlet can be found on
+[Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/az.resources/get-azlocation).