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The area code is a part of a telephone number normally occurring at the beginning of the number, that usually indicates a geographical area. It directs telephone calls to particular regions on a public switched telephone network (PSTN), where they are further routed by the local network.

Callers within the geographical area of a given area code usually do not need to include this particular area code in the number dialed, thereby giving the caller shorter local telephone numbers. In international phone numbers, the area code directly follows the country calling code.

While the E.164 standard regulates country codes at the international level, it is each country's responsibility to define the numbering within its own network. As a result, area codes may have:

• A fixed length, e.g. 3 digits in the US; 2 digits in Australia.
• A variable length, e.g. between 2 and 5 in Germany and in Austria; between 1 and 3 in Japan; 1 or 2 in Israel.
• Or be incorporated into the subscriber's number, as is the case in many countries, such as Spain or Norway. This is known as a "closed" telephone numbering plan. In some cases a trunk code (usually 0) must still be dialled, as in BelgiumFor alternate meanings, see Belgium (disambiguation). Belgian redirects here. For the horse breed commonly used as a draft horse, see Belgian. The Kingdom of Belgium ( Dutch: Belgi French: Belgique German: Belgien is a country in Western Europe, bordered, SwitzerlandThe Swiss Confederation or Switzerland is a landlocked federal state in central Europe, with neighbours Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The country has a strong tradition of political and military neutrality, but also of international c and South AfricaSouth Africa is a republic at the southern tip of Africa. It is bordered to the north by Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the north-east by Mozambique and Swaziland. Lesotho is contained entirely inside the borders of South Africa. South Africa is one o.

In many cases the area codes determine the rate (price) of a call. For example, in North America calls to the 800, 888, 877, and 866 areas are free to the caller and paid by the receiver, while calls to the 900 area are "premium rate", which means "very expensive". Normally intra-area calls are charged lower than inter-area calls, but there are exceptions, e.g. in Israel both are charged at the same rate.

1 United States and Canada

See also: List of North American area codesThis is a list of North American area codes . 200 Area code 201 New Jersey ( Hackensack, Jersey City, Hoboken and northeast New Jersey, overlays with 551) Area code 202 District of Columbia Area code 203 Connecticut ( Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury and

In the United StatesThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in and CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe, area codes are regulated by the North American Numbering PlanThe North American Numbering Plan NANP is a system for three-digit area codes that direct telephone calls to particular regions on a public switched telephone network ( PSTN), where they are further routed by the local network. It is applied to the United. Currently, all area codes (officially called numbering plan areas) in the NANP must have 3 digits. Many other countries have area codes that are shorter for heavily populated areas and longer for lightly populated areas.

Before 1995, North American area codes were of the form [2-9][0/1][0-9], with the prefix or NNX in the form [2-9][2-9][0-9]; that codespace filled up due to overallocation, and was extended to [2-9][0-8][0-9]-[2-9][0-9][0-9] (referred to as NPA-NXX). N11 codeAn N11 code (said as N-one-one) is a special short telephone number within the North American Numbering Plan, which allows access to special services. Each of these eight numbers prevents 10,000 telephone numbers (from N11-0000 to N11-9999) from being uses (such as 911) are not eligible to be used as area codes.

Not all area codes correspond to a geographical area. Codes 8xx with the last two digits matching, such as 800, 888, 877, 866, etc., are reserved for toll-free calls. Code 900 is reserved for premium-rate calls (also known as dial-it services, although such services also exist in some places on a local basis using a particular three-digit prefix following the area code, often "976"). Area code 710 has been reserved for the United States Government, although no lines other than the single telephone number 710-627-4387 ("NCS- GETS") had actually been connected on this code as of 2004.

None of these changes enable the existence of variable length area codes, which are commonplace outside North America. Also see [1].

There are several noteworthy peculiarities in the NANP:

• In some localities, all calls must include an area code, even when calling within the same area. For example in large urban areas, a 'local' call may be in another area code, or two area codes may overlay the same geography. In most cases a "1" needs to be dialed before the area code as well.
• Mobile phones are allocated numbers within regular geographic area codes corresponding (usually) to the subscriber's home or work location, instead of within a distinctive subset of area codes (e.g. 07xxx in the UK).
  Since a calling party cannot reliably distinguish between landline and mobile phone numbers, this forced NANP cellular telephone carriers into a charging model wherein the cellular subscriber usually pays for all airtime on his/her phone, whether placing or receiving a call, as opposed to the distinctive-subset model in which callers are usually charged at a higher rate ("caller-pays") for dialing mobile numbers than landlines. Some have cited this "receiver-pays" model as a reason for the US's relatively slow adoption rate of cellular telephony in the 1990s, compared to that in Europe and the Pacific Rim, though this has been largely countered by the post-2000 prevalence of free long-distance calling (to cellular or landline phones) on nearly all US cellular plans.

Another oddity of NANP telephone numbering is the popularity of alphabetic dialing. On most US telephones, three letters appear on each number button from 2 through 9. This accommodates 24 letters. Historically, the letters Q and Z were omitted, though on some modern telephones, they are added, so that the alphabet is apportioned as follows:

2 = ABC
3 = DEF
4 = GHI
5 = JKL
6 = MNO
7 = P(Q)RS
8 = TUV
9 = WXY(Z)

No letters are allocated to the 1 or 0 keys (although some corporate voice mail systems are set up to count Q and Z as 1, and some old telephones assigned the Z to the digit 0).

Originally, this scheme was meant as a mnemonic device for telephone number prefixes. When telephone numbers in the US were standardized in the mid-20th century, they were made seven digits long, including a 2-digit prefix, the latter expressed as letters rather than numbers (before World War II many localities used three letters and four numbers, and in much of California during this period phone numbers had only six digits - two letters followed by four numbers). The prefix was a name, and the first two or three letters (usually shown in capitals) of the name were dialed. After World War II, the third letter (where previously used) was replaced by a number (although New York City did this in 1930). Thus, the famous Glenn Miller tune "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" refers to a telephone number that would have been dialed 736-5000 (when the song came out in 1940, this was the number of the Hotel Pennsylvania, located across the street from the present Madison Square Garden; the hotel has changed ownership several times since then but still bears the same number today). Similarly, the classic Elizabeth Taylor film "BUtterfield 8" refers to the section of New York City where the film is set, where the telephone prefixes include 288 (on the East Side of Manhattan between roughly 64th and 86th Streets). This author's childhood telephone number was MOhawk 5-6612.

Today this system has been abandoned, but alphabetic dialing remains as a commercial mnemonic gimmick, particularly when combined with toll-free numbers. For example, one can dial 1-800-FLOWERS to send flowers to someone. Sometimes, longer words are used - for example one might be invited to give money to a public radio station by dialing 1-866-KPBS-GIVE. The "number" is 8 digits long, but only the first seven need be dialed. If an eighth (or more) digit is dialed, the switching system will ignore it.