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A Spanish phone number is nine digits with no space in front of it, and the first two or three of them are a province. Spain never split its plan into tidy regions the way a newer country would, but it did hand the codes out in blocks, and the second digit of a landline number is a quarter of the map. This page is that plan, province code by province code, and the game drills it.
Spanish landline numbers all start with a 9 (a handful start with 8, which is
the same geography under a different first digit) and run to nine digits in
total. The province is carried by the digits that follow: 91 plus seven for
Madrid, 93 plus seven for Barcelona, 958 plus six for Granada. There is no
trunk prefix and no optional part. Since 1998 the whole nine digits are dialled
every time, including for a call across the street, which is why the code is
printed on everything rather than left off local advertising.
Six provinces got a two digit code because they had the traffic to justify it,
and everywhere else takes three. A number that splits 9x xxx xx xx is
therefore one of the big ones before you have read which.
Mobile numbers start with a 6 or a 7 and carry no geography at all. They are the most common numbers on a modern shopfront, so the clue is worth a glance rather than a wait: if it opens with a 6, move on and look for something else.
The pairing is the trick worth carrying: each quarter has both a short code and a block of long ones. Madrid is 91 and its neighbours are 92x, Barcelona is 93 and Catalonia and Aragon around it are 97x, Bilbao is 94 with the northern provinces at 94x and 98x, and the south runs 95 and 96 with 95x and 96x behind them.
Each group can be switched on and off on its own in the game's start dialog. The four of them are the pairs above, so learning one quarter at a time is both the easiest way in and the way the numbering plan was actually built.
Madrid and its ring of suburbs, and by far the most common code in the game. A two digit code with seven digits after it is one of six answers, and this is the one to guess if you can only see that the number splits early.
The Balearics, all of them, on one code. It sits in the 97 block with Catalonia because that is the corner of the mainland it was administered from, which is a useful reminder that the blocks follow the old telephone regions rather than the map.
The eastern Canaries, a thousand kilometres off the coast of Africa, sitting in the same 92 block as Ávila and Toledo. Nothing about the digits says islands, so this and its western twin are worth learning as a pair and by heart.
91, followed by seven more digits. Barcelona is 93, Bilbao 94, Valencia 96 and Seville and Málaga share 95. Those six two digit codes are the exception; every other province takes a three digit code followed by six digits.
Nine, always. There is no trunk prefix and no local short form: since 1998 the full nine digits are dialled even for a call to the house next door, which is why the code is part of every number written on a sign.
No. Mobiles start with a 6 or a 7 and are not tied to a place at all, so a mobile number on a shop window tells you nothing about where the shop is. Only the numbers starting with 9, and a smaller set starting with 8, carry a province.
They are service numbers rather than places. 900 is freephone and 901 and 902 are shared cost lines used by banks, utilities and national chains, and none of them say anything about location. A 900 number on a van means the company is national.
Almost. The plan was built province by province, so in most of the country one code covers exactly one province. The exceptions are at the top: the largest provinces use a short two digit code, and a few of those cover more than one province between them.
The same clue elsewhere: Mexico Dialing Codes, Brazil Dialing Codes and US Dialing Codes. If you are training Spain for GeoGuessr, the roadside games pair well with it: European Bollards and European Chevrons.
