November 10 – Area Code Day

HOORAY for area codes! Have you ever tried dialing your phone number with a different area code in front of it? It’s pretty crazy…you talk to the “you” in another city/state. Fun! There are 269 area codes in the US.

I have lived in 3 different area codes: 616, 517, and currently 425

In my phone I have a LOT of different area code. I mean today everyone has cell phones so really you can have a New York number and live in Seattle, or a Michigan number and live in Florida. Area codes really don’t tell you what “area” someone is calling from anymore.

In my phone I have:360 – 616 – 231 – 405 – 425 – 908 – 517 – 248 – 206 – 570 – 630 – 916 – 970 – 541 – 602 – 303 – 510 – 509 – 269 – 315 – 734 – 619

Most of my friends with those area codes are truly in that area. It is amazing to me that I know people in so many different places! This was actually a pretty fun thing to do – see where all my friends were. There are people in California, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, and more!

I had a hard time giving up the 616 area code. 616 means HOME to me, and it was almost like it was a part of me. I still consider that my area code, even though my phone says it is 206.

Oh Area Codes you are such a valuable part of society and taken for granted all the time. So today we solute you Area Codes for grouping us by area and keeping us organized!

Area Code History

Area codes were developed in 1947 to meet the post-World War II surge in demand for telephone services. The first area code to be used was New Jersey's 201 area code in 1951. Holla to the 201!

Area codes are assigned according to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It was invented in 1947 by AT&T and Bell Laboratories. It conforms to the International Telecommunications Union Recommendation E.164, which is the international standard for numbering plans.

The NANP is the numbering plan for the Public Switched Telephone Network in the United States and its territories, Canada, Bermuda, and many Caribbean nations. NANP numbers are ten-digits in length in the following format: NXX-NXX-XXXX, where N is any digit from 2 to 9 and X is any digit from 0 to 9. The first three digits are usually called the area code. The second three digits are called the central office code, or prefix. The final four digits are the line number.

Oh, if you are really interested some of you are lucky enough that you can find area code t-shirts that let you proudly proclaim that you have a number from a certain area…with a code!