I'm a big fan of telecommunications. Well, phones mostly. I like to stay
on top of the latest happenings in the phone world. Am I weird? Yup.
One of the big things that has happened in the last couple of years is
that the old Numbering Plan Area or Area Code scheme ran out of codes. So
it was decided that NPA's could have any number as a second digit as
opposed to just a 0 or 1. So now it seems every NPA has to split. Cool I
say!
Below are some maps of NPA assignments. The intersting one for me is the
414/920 split. Pretty cool stuff! Be forwarned, some of these files are
small in size but are very large in dimension. So it might slow your
browser down!
On July 27, 1997, the 920 NPA split off from the 414 NPA. This is a
detailed map from Ameritech that
shows exactly where the split occurs.
The NANP (North American Numbering Plan) is the plan that contains all of
the NPA's for the USA, Canada, and the Caribbean. This map shows all
NPA's in North America excluding California (see map below). Notice that
most Metropolitan areas now have at least one area code. The current
numbering scheme will be exhausted by 2009. Note:
This is a very large picture! It may crash some browsers!
California has so many NPA's it would have been evil to put them on the
big map because you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. When a state has
more than 20 NPA's, you know there's a lot of people there. Note: This is a very large picture! It may crash some
browsers!
Before the new NPA style, the Caribbean had only one NPA, 809. Now that's
just the Dominican Republic. Every island nation except Cuba, Haiti,
Guadeloupe, and Martinique has its own NPA now. In addition, Guam and the
Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have entered the NANP.
But they're in the Pacific. This map isn't as big as the others.