A common misconception, but no, AWS AZs are not DCs. A single AZ may be composed of multiple data centers[1], and a region may incorporate facilities that do not serve a public AZ[2], or that supply other capabilities[3].
[1] They'd be necessarily close together due to speed-of-light constraints.
[2] You may infer this from S3's triple-zone replication, which is still somehow magically fulfilled in regions that only have two public AZs.
Do you happen to know how physically far can be AZs in the same region? The EBS sticking to the same AZ hints that they may be not that close, but I'm also very surprised to discover that 1 AZ != 1 DC
Which puts it at 200km in a millisecond (5 microseconds is 1 / 200 of a millisecond.) Like I said "modern communications is at a fraction of lightspeed", although I didn't want to guess what fraction. But 200 / 600 = 1/3 is a reasonable fraction, seems legit.
[1] They'd be necessarily close together due to speed-of-light constraints.
[2] You may infer this from S3's triple-zone replication, which is still somehow magically fulfilled in regions that only have two public AZs.
[3] most obviously, Direct Connect.