diff --git a/device/index.js b/device/index.js
index 95913ae..314a57e 100644
--- a/device/index.js
+++ b/device/index.js
@@ -512,7 +512,8 @@ function DeviceClient(options) {
       }
 
       if (!isUndefined(options.host) && isUndefined(options.region)) {
-         var pattern = /[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.iot\.([a-z]+[-[a-z]+]*-[a-z]+-[0-9]+)\.amazonaws\..+/;
+         // extract anything in between "iot" and "amazonaws" as region
+         var pattern = /[a-zA-Z0-9]+\.iot\.(.*)\.amazonaws\..+/;
          var region = pattern.exec(options.host);
          if (region === null) {
             console.log('Host endpoint is not valid');
diff --git a/test/device-unit-tests.js b/test/device-unit-tests.js
index 65a92d5..9bab280 100644
--- a/test/device-unit-tests.js
+++ b/test/device-unit-tests.js
@@ -616,6 +616,18 @@ describe( "device class unit tests", function() {
          );
       });
    });
+   describe("device extract the region from host value", function () {
+      it("does not throw an exception", function () {
+         assert.doesNotThrow(function (err) {
+            var device = deviceModule({
+               host: 'XXXX.iot.us-east-1.amazonaws.com',
+               protocol: 'wss'
+            });
+         }, function (err) { console.log('\t[' + err + ']'); return true; }
+         );
+         assert.equal(mqttSave.firstCall.args[1].region, "us-east-1");
+      });
+   });
    describe( "device doesn't accept invalid timing parameters: baseReconnectTimeMs<1", function() {
       it("throws an exception", function() {
          assert.throws( function( err ) {