Area code 517 is the

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

which serves the south central portion of the

Lower Peninsula The Lower Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Lower Michigan – is the larger, southern and less elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; the other being the Upper Peninsula, which is separated by the S ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, centered on the state capital,

Lansing Lansing () is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is mostly in Ingham County, although portions of the city extend west into Eaton County and north into Clinton County. The 2020 census placed the city's population at 112,644, makin ...

. Other notable cities within 517 include

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

Mason Mason may refer to: Occupations * Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces * Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...

Eaton Rapids Eaton Rapids is a city in Eaton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 5,214 at the 2010 census. The city is located in the south of Eaton Rapids Township, on the boundary with Hamlin Township, though it is politically indep ...

East Lansing East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. Most of the city lies within Ingham County with a smaller portion extending north into Clinton County. At the 2020 Census the population was 47,741. Located directly east of the state capital ...

Holt Holt or holte may refer to: Natural world *Holt (den), an otter den * Holt, an area of woodland Places Australia * Holt, Australian Capital Territory * Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than 'Britain' today. The name for Scot ...

Howell Howell may refer to: Places In the United Kingdom *Howell, Lincolnshire, England In the United States *Howell, Georgia * Howell, Evansville, a neighborhood of Evansville, Indiana *Howell, Michigan * Howell, Missouri *Howell, Utah * Howell C ...

, Coldwater,

Adrian Adrian is a form of the Latin language, Latin given name Adrianus (given name), Adrianus or Hadrianus (disambiguation), Hadrianus. Its ultimate origin is most likely via the former river Adria (river), Adria from the Venetic language, Venetic and ...

, Blissfield, and Hillsdale. 517 was one of the original area codes created in 1947. It initially covered the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula, outside the southeast (

Metro Detroit The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is a major metropolitan area in the U.S. State of Michigan, consisting of the city of Detroit and its surrounding area. There are varied definitions of the area, including the ...

and

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

), which was assigned

area code 313 Area code 313 is a telephone area code of the North American Numbering Plan serving Detroit and most of its closest suburbs in Wayne County, Michigan. It includes the enclave cities Hamtramck and Highland Park, as well as Allen Park, Dearborn ...

. Besides Lansing, It included the Tri-Cities (

Saginaw Saginaw () is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Saginaw County. The city of Saginaw and Saginaw County are both in the area known as Mid-Michigan. Saginaw is adjacent to Saginaw Charter Township and considered part of Greater ...

, Bay City and Midland) and much of

Mid-Michigan Central Michigan, also called Mid Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. As its name implies, it is the middle area of the Lower Peninsula. Lower Michigan is said to resemble a mitten, and Mid Michigan corre ...

, then it was later expanded to include Jackson.LincMad's Area Codes of the 1970s
/ref> It was one of the largest area codes east of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

that did not cover an entire state. On April 7, 2001; the central and northern portions of the old 517 territory became

area code 989 989 is the area code for Central Michigan, the northeastern Lower Peninsula, and portions of the Thumb. It is the highest-numbered area code in use in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), as well as the highest possible under the current sys ...

. Until then, despite the presence of Lansing and the Tri-Cities, 517 had been the only one of Michigan's original three area codes to have never been split, and one of the few remaining original area codes (not counting those serving an entire state) to have never been split or overlaid.

References

External links

List of 517 Area Code exchanges
from AreaCodeDownload.com 517 517 Central Michigan Telecommunications-related introductions in 1947 {{areacode-stub