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Can you tell which part of Mexico a dialing code comes from?
Can you guess the Brazilian dialing codes for each state?
Can you match every Canadian area code to its province?
Can you locate all six districts of Belize?
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An American area code is three digits on the side of a truck, and unlike most numbering plans it does not spell out where it is. There is no region digit and no hierarchy: the codes were handed out in 1947 by how long a number took to dial, and everything since has been patched on top. That makes this the one dialing game that is memory rather than pattern, and it is worth the memory, because a code is often the only readable thing in an American frame.
A United States phone number is ten digits: a three digit area code, a three
digit exchange, then four. Written out it is (212) 555-1234 or
212-555-1234, and a 1 in front of it is the country code rather than part of
the area code.
An area code never starts with a 0 or a 1. Until 1995 the middle digit was also constrained, and that rule is still the most useful piece of history in the plan: a 0 in the middle meant the code covered a whole state, and a 1 in the middle meant the state had more than one. Codes like 907 and 808 are whole state codes from the original set; 212, 312 and 213 are cities that were big enough to need their own from the start. Since 1995 any digit can sit in the middle, so a code like 470 or 743 is new by construction.
The plan is shared with Canada and much of the Caribbean, which is why a familiar looking code can be in another country entirely. This game covers the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii and the territories.
Two habits are worth building. The first is to treat neighbouring numbers as unrelated: 212 and 213 are on opposite coasts, because in 1947 they were both fast to dial on a rotary phone. The second is to expect more than one code on the same ground. A split gave a region a new code and took territory away from the old one; an overlay stacked a new code on top of the old one instead, which is why a phone number in a large metro area can start with any of four or five codes and none of them narrow it down further.
Those seven groups can be switched on and off individually in the game's start dialog. One region at a time is the only sensible way through a list this long, and the game will also deal you a run of just the codes you have been getting wrong once it has watched you play a few rounds.
Manhattan, and the answer line above is the point: the island now answers to four codes stacked on the same ground. A new line in Manhattan has not been given a 212 in decades, so 212 on a sign is a business that has been there a while, and any of its overlays is the same square mile.
Alaska, all of it, on a single code. A 0 in the middle is the marker of the 1947 set, and where such a code is still alone it usually means the state never grew enough phone lines to need a second. Those are the free points in this game.
Downtown Los Angeles. It started as the code for the whole southern half of California and was cut down by split after split, handing territory to 818, 310 and 562 among others; what survived is now shared with the codes on the line above, which cover exactly the same streets. The pattern repeats in every big metro: the low, old code is the historic core, and the new ones either ring it or sit on top of it.
Guam, which shares the plan without being a state. The territories all sit in the game's non contiguous group along with Alaska and Hawaii, and they are worth learning as a block: a handful of codes, one apiece except for Puerto Rico, and each of them an entire answer on its own.
Originally by dialing time. The 1947 plan gave the shortest codes to the busiest places, because on a rotary phone a 1 was quick to dial and a 0 was slow, which is why New York got 212 and Los Angeles 213. Since then new codes have been added as splits and overlays wherever numbers ran out, with no geographic logic to which digits are used.
A second area code laid over the same territory as an existing one, rather than carving the territory in two. Overlays are why a single city can have four or five codes and why ten digit dialing became normal in the United States: with two codes on one street, seven digits is no longer enough to identify a line.
Only as history. Until 1995 the middle digit had to be a 0 or a 1, with 0 marking a code that covered a whole state and 1 a state that had several. After 1995 any digit was allowed, so a code with a 2 to 9 in the middle is one of the newer ones, almost always a split or an overlay of an older code nearby.
No. Some small states are covered by one code, but large states have dozens, a metro area can hold several at once, and a code never crosses a state line except in a few historical cases. Learning them by state is the wrong unit; learning them by metro area is the right one.
On the sides of work trucks and trailers, on billboards, on real estate and contractor signs, and painted on storefront windows. American businesses advertise a phone number more often than an address, and the code is readable at a distance when the street signs are not.
The same clue in countries that did build a pattern into the plan: Mexico Dialing Codes, Brazil Dialing Codes and Spain Dialing Codes. For the other American state level clue, try US License Plates.
