They amuse me. And they have for a while. I find it interesting that certain areas of the country choose certain numbers as their area codes to support a local cause (VOL or 865 supports the Tennessee Volunteers, and 321 supports the space shuttle countdowns in the Space Coast, FL area). I like to know "where" is calling when an unknown number is making my phone ring.
When I was a kid, my area code changed four times, and I only moved once. It amuses me that they can't plan ahead for which areas are going to grow enough to need a new area code. When I moved to Florida, 407 covered Orlando to West Palm, along the East coast. Living in Port St. Lucie, we got switched to 561, as did West Palm. A few years later, West Palm kept the 561, and Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River counties got assigned 772. I imagine that it'll stay for those three counties, but if the experts couldn't figure it out, I guess you can't trust me either, LoL.
Kinda like zip codes. Remember that episode of Salute Your Shorts where Ugg was dating the mail lady and she knew the postal codes for EVERYWHERE? That was cool.
Anyway, about area codes. We had like eighteen of them in Florida. There are twenty-eight in California. But, let's take a moment to laugh at the states/provinces that only have one area code each. Why laugh? Because it's just another reminder that nobody wants to live there (or, in some cases, the areas are just too small to warrant more than one). And we'll start West and go East.
Alaska. 907.
Hawaii. 808.
Idaho. 208.
Montana. 406.
Wyoming. 307.
North Dakota. 701.
South Dakota. 605.
Yukon. 867.
Saskatchewan. 306.
Manitoba, Canada. 204.
Washington, DC. 202.
Delaware. 302.
Rhode Island. 401.
Vermont. 802.
New Hampshire. 603.
Maine. 207.
Newfoundland. 709.
New Brunswick. 506.
Nova Scotia AND Prince Edward Island. 902.
Does anyone else find it strange that they all have a '0' as their middle digit EXCEPT the Yukon province? I'm almost curious enough to go look up why that is, but not quite, LoL.
Nevada only has one, except for the Las Vegas area, which has another all to itself.
West Virginia, for some reason, has two: 304 and 681.
strange.
Wikipedia on the history of NANP:
ReplyDelete“Originally there were only 86 codes, with the biggest population areas getting the numbers that took the shortest time to dial on rotary phones.[3] That is why New York City was given 212, Los Angeles given 213, Chicago 312, and Detroit 313, while Vermont received 802 (a total of 20 clicks, 8+10+2). Four areas received the then-maximum number of 21 clicks: South Dakota (605), North Carolina (704), South Carolina (803), and Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island in the Canadian Maritimes (902). Additionally, in the original plan a middle digit of zero generally indicated the number was for an entire state or province with one area code, while a middle digit of one indicated that it was for a smaller region.
At first, area codes were all in the form N-Y-X, where N is any number 2-9, Y is 0 or 1, and X is any number 1-9 (if Y is 0) or any number 2-9 (if Y is 1). The restriction on N saves 0 for calling the operator, and 1 for signaling a long-distance call. The restriction on the second digit, limiting it to 0 or 1, was designed to help telephone equipment recognize the difference between a three-digit "area code" (with 0 or 1 as the second digit) and the three-digit "exchange" prefix (which had avoided 0 or 1 for the second digit, due to restrictions in existing switching equipment). For example, when a caller dialed "1-202-555-1212", the switching equipment would recognize that "202" was an area code because of the middle 0, and route the call appropriately. If a caller were to dial 1-345-6789, the 4 would be recognized as a long-distance call within the area code and routed as such, without waiting to see or guessing at how many digits the caller meant to enter.”
~Nik
wow Nik, that was an interesting read. And so complementary to the point of the 0s being in areas where nobody lives! thanks!
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