Zip and area codes

[english si]

BTW, regarding the hyphens, we don't actually dial a hyphen.

I know - we would just go "what on earth is this person on?" if someone wrote down their number with hyphens, not spaces.

Your hypothetical man in John O Groats would never ring 020-7493-8181 - he'd ring 020 7493 8181, and no one would break the zero off, other than put it in brackets after a +44 code - while 0-20 is right out, 0 20 is also madness (I know you were highlighting the difference between 0044 20 .... and 020 .... - sorry, using the international dialling code that every country is meant to use, rather than the North America-specific one).

Several European countries have prefix 00

All EU countries (and a great many other countries - as it's meant to be the one that is used worldwide) and maybe all of Europe. Finland also has 99 where a different international carrier is used.

[J N Winkler]

I would wager that the VAST majority of Americans would have absolutely no clue what to do if they saw a phone number beginning with the plus sign. Consider that the State Department estimates that only about 30% of Americans even have a passport. An international number written by most Americans is invariably written in the format 011-[country code]-[etc.], such as the 011-44-20-7493-8181 I listed earlier. The "011" is needed to tell the person what to dial because most people wouldn't know otherwise.

I am American and I do write US phone numbers for international audiences with the plus sign, e.g. +1 316 943 2023.  I don't use "011" plus country code because I don't want the number to be misinterpreted as dialing instructions by someone who has to follow an unusual procedure to place international trunk calls.  The plus sign is really a signal that the numbers between it and the next logical delimiter is the country code (1 for North America, 44 for the UK, etc.).

Most people based in Britain who want to give a landline phone number in a format that is friendly for international dialing render it as follows:  +44 (0) 1865 511570.  In this example, 44 is the country code and (0) means that the 0 which would ordinarily be dialed to reach this number from within the UK is omitted for international calls, while 1865 (01865 within the UK) is for Oxford.

In the UK it is still not uncommon to see phone numbers on business signing and in similar contexts without the second digit 1 introduced in the phONE change English Si describes ("0865 511570" using the example given above).

[kphoger]

México is an interesting case in which the dialing pattern is different for calling cell phones than calling land lines.

To call a landline from within México, the dialing pattern is {01 123 456 7890}, where 123 is the area code.
To call a local cell phone from within México it is {044 123 456 7890}.
To call a long-distance cell phone from within México, it is {045 123 456 7890}.
To call a land line from the United States, it is {011 52 123 456 7890}, +52 being the country code.
To call a cell phone from the United States, you have to add a digit:  {011 52 1 123 456 7890}.
To futher complicate things, I believe a long-distance cell-to-cell call within México is {01 123 456 7890}.

So, when people write down their phone number, they usually write 123 456 7890 (or 12 34 56 78 90), but if it's a cell phone they'll often write 044 123 456 7890, even though 044 is not actually part of their phone number.

[Road Hog]

Like when calling the U.K., you drop the leading 0 when you call Germany from the U.S. You dial 011 (international access code), then 49 (country code for Germany), then, say, 69 (city code for Frankfurt), then the rest of the number.

Naturally, when dialing from in country, you would dial 069 for Frankfurt, then the rest of the number.

Big cities in Germany have short city codes and tiny burgs can have as many as 5-digit codes (mostly in the former East Germany). Phone numbers in Germany can be of variable length, with a maximum of 11 digits (including the city code).

City codes in Germany are organized as follows:

[ghYHZ]

Calls to Saint Pierre et Miquelon are interesting......they're within North America but you would place it as an international call from Canada or the US: 011 (508) 41 XX-XX

(the islands are so close to the south coast of Newfoundland......in some areas a Canadian (& probably US) cell phone will work just fine on the Bell Aliant Network.......so place the call from your cell the same as you would any place else in North American: 1 + area code)   

[cpzilliacus]

Calls to Saint Pierre et Miquelon are interesting......they're within North America but you would place it as an international call from Canada or the US: 011 (508) 41 XX-XX

(the islands are so close to the south coast of Newfoundland......in some areas a Canadian (& probably US) cell phone will work just fine on the Bell Aliant Network.......so place the call from your cell the same as you would any place else in North American: 1 + area code)   

Do you have to use Euros there, or do they accept Canadian currency?

[english si]

http://www.st-pierre-et-miquelon.com/english/questions.php <- Euros (which you can get from the ATMs), but most places accept dollars American and Canadian.

And if you cell phone doesn't work ringing a North America number, just add a 00 before the number (as code for North America is 1 anyway...)

[mgk920]

Calls to Saint Pierre et Miquelon are interesting......they're within North America but you would place it as an international call from Canada or the US: 011 (508) 41 XX-XX

(the islands are so close to the south coast of Newfoundland......in some areas a Canadian (& probably US) cell phone will work just fine on the Bell Aliant Network.......so place the call from your cell the same as you would any place else in North American: 1 + area code)   

Do you have to use Euros there, or do they accept Canadian currency?

They are a full department of France and yes, they use Euros.

I find that Mexican dialing pattern to be bizarre.  In the USA, the numbering authorities and the FCC purposely made it difficult for the public to distinguish between numbering patterns for cell phones and landlines, in order to not unfairly 'discriminate' between the different carrier companies and technologies.  They rejected the original proposal for the '630' area code in the Chicagoland area for that reason (it was originally planned to be a wireless-only overlay area code for the entire old '312' area, much like '917' originally was in NYC) and instead it became part of a normal three-way geographic split of the '708' suburbs, the other new area code there becoming '847'.  This was in the early to mid 1990s.

Mike

[english si]

They are a full department of France

Nope - they are an overseas collectivity, not an overseas department. It is considered a collectivité territorial - ie a territory. They govern themselves and don't get votes in the legislature or for the executive branches of the French government.

They also are not in the EU.

[Duke87]

Like when calling the U.K., you drop the leading 0 when you call Germany from the U.S.

That was what tripped me up. I dialed the zero. I also had to look up that I was supposed to start with 011, as I did not know that.

I suppose it's way too late for it now, but it really would be helpful if everyone in the world had the same phone number format. The internet got it right: all URLs are the same everywhere!

[Desert Man]

Now time to discuss an avid fascination with postal zip codes and telephone area codes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NANP_area_codes#700

Example of the super-long article enlisted them one by one, but take a shortcut to the 700's and here you find my 760 represents the California Desert and parts of the Inland Empire, Cal. and San Diego area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_area_codes

California has a total of 30-32(?) telephone area codes, the most of any state.

Formerly it was 213 since the area code system started after WWII (1945) when long distance calling service was perfected, then it was part of 714 (Orange County, San Diego and Riverside/San Bernardino) in the 1960s and 70s and 619 (for San Diego) in the mid 1980s to mid 1990s. In around 1990, the Riverside area got 909 and around 2000, it got 951 while 909 still is for the San Bernardino area.

760 is the largest area code in the contiguous US, while 907 of Alaska is the true largest and 780 for Canada covers the sparsely populated Arctic region (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut).

[corco]

Wait, 406 is the largest in the contiguous US.