Organization and Description of Business

Digital Realty Trust, Inc. through its controlling interest in Digital Realty Trust, L.P. (the Operating Partnership) and the subsidiaries of the Operating Partnership (collectively, we, our, us or the Company) is a leading global provider of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions for customers across a variety of industry verticals ranging from cloud and information technology services, communications and social networking to financial services, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and consumer products. The Operating Partnership, a Maryland limited partnership, is the entity through which Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a Maryland corporation, conducts its business of owning, acquiring, developing and operating data centers. Digital Realty Trust, Inc. operates as a REIT for federal income tax purposes. A summary of our data center portfolio as of December 31, 2017 and 2016 is as follows:



	Data Centers
	As of December 31, 2017						As of December 31, 2016
Region	Operating			Held for Sale	Unconsolidated Joint Ventures	Total	Operating	Held for Sale	Unconsolidated Joint Ventures	Total
United States	131	⁽¹	⁾	7	14	152	123	3	14	140
Europe	38			—	—	38	37	—	—	37
Asia	3			—	4	7	3	—	1	4
Australia	5			—	—	5	4	—	—	4
Canada	3	⁽¹	⁾	—	—	3	2	—	—	2
Total	180			7	18	205	169	3	15	187


(1)	Includes 15 data centers acquired as part of the merger with DuPont Fabros Technology, Inc., of which 14 are located in the United States and one is located in Canada.

We are diversified in major metropolitan areas where data center and technology customers are concentrated, including the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Northern Virginia, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle, Silicon Valley and Toronto metropolitan areas in North America, the Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London and Paris metropolitan areas in Europe and the Hong Kong, Melbourne, Osaka, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo metropolitan areas in the Asia Pacific region. The portfolio consists of data centers, Internet gateway data centers and office and other non-data center space.

The Operating Partnership was formed on July 21, 2004 in anticipation of Digital Realty Trust, Inc.’s initial public offering (IPO) on November 3, 2004 and commenced operations on that date. As of December 31, 2017, Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owns a 96.0% common interest and a 100.0% preferred interest in the Operating Partnership. As of December 31, 2016, Digital Realty Trust, Inc. owned a 98.5% common interest and a 100.0% preferred interest in the Operating Partnership. As sole general partner of the Operating Partnership, Digital Realty Trust, Inc. has the full, exclusive and complete responsibility for the Operating Partnership’s day-to-day management and control. The limited partners of the Operating Partnership do not have rights to replace Digital Realty Trust, Inc. as the general partner nor do they have participating rights, although they do have certain protective rights.

In connection with the closing of the DFT Merger, (i) each share of DFT's common stock was converted into the right to receive 0.545 shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. common stock, (ii) each common unit of partnership interests in the DFT Operating Partnership was converted into the right to receive 0.545 common units in the Operating Partnership, except to the extent that a unit holder elected to redeem his or her units and receive 0.545 shares of Digital Realty Trust, Inc. common stock for each such redeemed unit; and (iii) each share of DFT's 6.625% Series C Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Stock was converted into the right to receive one share of a newly designated class of preferred stock of Digital Realty Trust, Inc's. 6.625% Series C Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Stock, with substantially similar rights, privileges, preferences and interests as DFT's 6.625% Series C Preferred Stock.