Original North American area codes: Difference between revisions

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In order to facilitate direct dialing calls, the North American Numbering Plan was created and instituted in 1947 by AT&T, also known as the Bell System. These 3 digit numbers were given to all regions throughout the United States and Canada. At first, the codes were used only by long-distance operators; the first customer-dialed calls using area codes did not occur until November 10, 1951, when the first directly-dialed call was made from Englewood, New Jersey to Alameda, California.^[1] Direct dialing was gradually instituted throughout the country, and by the mid-1960s, it was commonplace in most larger cities.

Originally there were only 86 codes, with the biggest population areas getting the numbers that took the shortest time to dial on rotary telephones.^[2] That is why New York City was given 212, Los Angeles given 213, and Chicago 312. Additionally, in the original plan a middle digit of zero indicated the area code covered an entire state/province, while area codes with a middle digit of one were assigned to states/provinces that were divided into more than one area code.

List of original area codes

Area code 901 - Tennessee
Area code 902 - Nova Scotia, PEI, New Brunswick
Area code 913 - Kansas
Area code 914 - New York
Area code 915 - Texas
Area code 916 - California

References

[1] First direct-dialed call

[2] Area Code History.

[1]

[2]

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 * [[Area code 207]] - [[Maine]]
 * [[Area code 208]] - [[Idaho]]
-* [[Area code 212]] - [[Manhattan|Manhattan (NYC)]]
+* [[Area code 212]] - [[New York]]
 * [[Area code 213]] - [[California]]
 * [[Area code 214]] - [[Texas]]