Regional Conferences

United Methodists in the U.S., Africa, Europe and the Philippines are organized by geographical regions. Each regional conference has the additional ability to:

Set minimum qualifications and educational requirements for ordained and licensed ministry
Set minimum qualifications and educational requirements for specialized lay ministries
Set qualifications for professing membership and standards of conduct to remain professing members
Structure its own regional, annual, district and charge conferences consistent with the laws of their country(ies)
Establish its own hymnal and ritual, including the rites of marriage and burial
Create its own judicial court for matters arising from sections of the Book of Discipline adapted by that regional conference, and document its rules and processes for adjudicating formal complaints against clergy and lay members.

Locate Contact information

Use our directory to find information about regional conference episcopal areas and/or annual conferences:

The United Methodist Church has nine regional conferences:

The U.S.
Africa: East Africa, Mid Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa
Europe: Central and Southern Europe, Germany, and Nordic-Baltic-Ukraine
Asia: Philippines

Each of them contains several annual conferences and often several countries. Each has a number of bishops fixed by decision of General Conference. Since the creation of The United Methodist Church in 1968, all bishops are equal, whether elected in the U.S. or outside the U.S. Together they form the Council of Bishops.

Until 2025, when the constitution was amended to regionalize the church, regional conferences outside of the U.S. were called "central conferences." The Methodist Episcopal Church established the first two central conferences in Asia (India in 1885, China in 1897). The next was in Europe (1908). Central conferences in Africa and Latin America began in the 1920s.

Concurrently with the establishment of the Africa and Latin America central conferences, some annual conferences outside the United States became or were made autonomous. This happened in Mexico, Japan, Korea, and later, throughout all of Latin America, and all of Asia except for the Philippines, where a United Methodist central conference has remained.

The U.S.

The U.S. region comprises five jurisdictions (North Central, Northeastern, South Central, Southeastern and Western). This regional conference was created in 2025, when The UMC's Constitution was amended to begin the process of regionalization. The scale of the changes regionalization will bring are substantial and will take time to fully implement. The inaugural meeting of the U.S. Regional Conference will take place in late 2028 or early 2029.

Contact information for Annual Conferences in the U.S.