diff --git a/changelog/unreleased/pull-2350 b/changelog/unreleased/pull-2350
index 32dd89c4b..0068f542f 100644
--- a/changelog/unreleased/pull-2350
+++ b/changelog/unreleased/pull-2350
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ Enhancement: Add option to configure S3 region
 
 We've added a new option for setting the region when accessing an S3-compatible
 service. For some providers, it is required to set this to a valid value. You
-can do that either by setting the environment variable `AWS_REGION` or using
-the option `s3.region`, e.g. like this: `-o s3.region="us-east-1"`.
+can do that either by setting the environment variable `AWS_DEFAULT_REGION` or
+using the option `s3.region`, e.g. like this: `-o s3.region="us-east-1"`.
 
 https://github.com/restic/restic/pull/2350
diff --git a/cmd/restic/global.go b/cmd/restic/global.go
index f2e7c7517..4001e7720 100644
--- a/cmd/restic/global.go
+++ b/cmd/restic/global.go
@@ -486,7 +486,7 @@ func parseConfig(loc location.Location, opts options.Options) (interface{}, erro
 		}
 
 		if cfg.Region == "" {
-			cfg.Region = os.Getenv("AWS_REGION")
+			cfg.Region = os.Getenv("AWS_DEFAULT_REGION")
 		}
 
 		if err := opts.Apply(loc.Scheme, &cfg); err != nil {
diff --git a/doc/030_preparing_a_new_repo.rst b/doc/030_preparing_a_new_repo.rst
index 1d854e571..bbe729bc1 100644
--- a/doc/030_preparing_a_new_repo.rst
+++ b/doc/030_preparing_a_new_repo.rst
@@ -198,10 +198,10 @@ default location:
     Losing your password means that your data is irrecoverably lost.
 
 If needed, you can manually specify the region to use by either setting the
-environment variable ``AWS_REGION`` or calling restic with an option parameter
-like ``-o s3.region="us-east-1"``. If the region is not specified, the default
-region is used. Afterwards, the S3 server (``s3.amazonaws.com``) will redirect
-restic to the correct endpoint.
+environment variable ``AWS_DEFAULT_REGION`` or calling restic with an option
+parameter like ``-o s3.region="us-east-1"``. If the region is not specified,
+the default region is used. Afterwards, the S3 server (at least for AWS,
+``s3.amazonaws.com``) will redirect restic to the correct endpoint.
 
 Until version 0.8.0, restic used a default prefix of ``restic``, so the files
 in the bucket were placed in a directory named ``restic``. If you want to