"The Game Boy Advance (ゲームボーイアドバンス, often shortened to GBA) is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China on June 8, 2004 (excluding Hong Kong).

In 1996, magazines including issues 53 and 54 of Total! and the July 1996 issue of Game Informer featured reports of a new Game Boy, codenamed Project Atlantis. Although the expected release date of "early 1997" would make that machine seem to be the Game Boy Color, it was described as having "a 32-bit RISC processor" and "allowing similar to Super Nintendo Entertainment System standard games-playing to be played in the palm of your hand" - a description that more closely matches the Game Boy Advance. It also may have referred to the unnamed, unreleased Game Boy Color successor prototype that was revealed at 2009's Game Developer's Conference."

Source: Wikipedia, "Game_Boy_Advance", available under the CC-BY-SA License.

Region Locking:
Game Boy Advance consoles are not region locked and games can be played on any system that reads standard Game Boy Advance cartridges.

Compatibility
Game Boy Advanced consoles can play Game Boy and Game Boy Color game cartridges, with the exception of the Game Boy Micro, which can only play GBA games.