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, r ...
s in the
North American Numbering Plan
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international calling ...
in the
U.S. State
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
. Area code 201 was the area code assigned to the entire state of New Jersey in 1947, when the North American area code system was formulated. After splits in 1958, 1991 and 1997, it covers the northeasternmost portion of the state, including most of Hudson and
Bergen
Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, secon ...
counties on the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between Ne ...
, bordering
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Major cities in the numbering plan area include
Bayonne
Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine r ...
,
Jersey City
Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.Hoboken
Hoboken ( ; Unami: ') is a city in Hudson County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 60,417. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 58,69 ...
Secaucus
Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,Englewood. Area code 551 is an overlay code to the same numbering plan area that was installed in 2001.
History
Area code 201 was the first-assigned numbering plan area (NPA) code of the original NPAs when
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...
devised the North American Numbering Plan in 1947. It was also the first area code with
Direct Distance Dialing
Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunication service feature in North America by which a caller may, without operator assistance, call any other user outside the local calling area. Direct dialing by subscribers typically requires extra d ...
(DDD) service, when in 1951 the first direct-dialed long-distance call was made from
Englewood, New Jersey
Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from po ...
to
Alameda, California
Alameda ( ; ; Spanish for " tree-lined path") is a city in Alameda County, California, located in the East Bay region of the Bay Area. The city is primarily located on Alameda Island, but also spans Bay Farm Island and Coast Guard Island, as we ...
.
Area code 201 originally covered the entire state of New Jersey,1951: First Direct-Dial Transcontinental Telephone Call AT&T Inc., accessed May 12, 2007. despite the state's dense population. The bulk of New Jersey's population is concentrated in the large metropolitan area west of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the northeast and the suburbs of
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
in the southwest. The creation of numbering plan areas was based on the anticipated number of central offices needed in each area and one plan area could only accommodate slightly over 500 central offices.
In 1958, 201 was restricted to northern New Jersey, while the area from the state capital, Trenton, southward, including the southern
Jersey Shore
The Jersey Shore (known by locals simply as the Shore) is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Geographically, the term encompasses about of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May P ...
and the New Jersey side of the lower Delaware Valley, received
area code 609
Area codes 609 and 640 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the central part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The numbering plan area includes the cities of Trenton, Princeton, Ewing, Hamilton, and southeaste ...
.
For the next 33 years, area code 201 served Bergen, Hudson,
Ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wor ...
,
Essex
Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...
Passaic
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69, ...
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
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, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
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, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lor ...
,
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
,
Monmouth
Monmouth ( , ; cy, Trefynwy meaning "town on the Monnow") is a town and community in Wales. It is situated where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. Monmouth is northeast of Cardiff, and west of London. ...
,
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...
and Warren counties, a region largely coextensive with the New Jersey side of the New York City area.
As the central region of New Jersey grew during the 1980s, the northeastern section of the state lost sizable portions of its population due to the decline of its major cities, including Newark, Paterson,
Clifton
Clifton may refer to:
People
* Clifton (surname)
* Clifton (given name)
Places
Australia
*Clifton, Queensland, a town
** Shire of Clifton
*Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong
* Clifton, Western Australia
Canada
* Clifton, Nova Sc ...
area code 908
Area code 908 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in the northern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The numbering plan area (NPA) comprises communities in Union County, Somerset County, northern parts of M ...
was split from 201; it primarily serves the north-central regions of the state.About Verizon New Jersey: Years 1985 to 1998 ,
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...
, accessed May 12, 2007.
Within four years, 201 was close to exhaustion once again due to the proliferation of
cell phone
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive telephone call, calls over a radio freq ...
s,
pager
A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknow ...
s and
fax machine
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
s. The supply of numbers was further limited because the entire northern half of the state is a single LATA, meaning numbers in 908 were not available for use. On June 1, 1997, Essex and Passaic counties—respectively home to Newark and Paterson, the state's largest and third-largest cities—as well as Morris and Sussex counties were split off as area code 973. This left Hudson and Bergen counties, the two most densely populated counties in the state and the closest to New York City, as the only counties in the 201 plan area.
The 1997 split was intended as a long-term solution. However, demand for new numbers continued in Hudson and Bergen counties, and it was apparent the area would need another area code.
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas ...
, the dominant telephone company in New Jersey, lobbied for an overlay rather than a split. Overlays were a new concept at the time, and were controversial because they required implementation of
ten-digit dialing
Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories that are members of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when dialing to initiate a telep ...
. However, Verizon wanted to spare its customers the burden of changing telephone numbers.
Area code 551 was created in 2001 to overlay 201, along with area codes
862
__NOTOC__
Year 862 ( DCCCLXII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* The Varangians (called Rus'), under the leadership of Rurik, a Viking chiefta ...
and
848
__NOTOC__
Year 848 ( DCCCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Europe
* Summer – Bordeaux, capital of Aquitaine, falls into the hands of Viking ...
, which overlay area codes
973
Year 973 ( CMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* Spring – The Byzantine army, led by General Melias (Domestic of the S ...
The Record (Bergen County)
''The Record'' (also called ''The North Jersey Record'', ''The Bergen Record'', ''The Sunday Record'' (Sunday edition) and formerly ''The Bergen Evening Record'') is a newspaper in New Jersey, United States. Serving Bergen, Essex, Hudson and ...
'', April 18, 2001. Accessed August 11, 2001. "The new New Jersey area codes -- 551, 356, and 848 -- were announced this week and will be introduced next year in the regions currently served by 201, 973, and 732, respectively." With the implementation of the overlay area codes on December 1, 2001,
ten-digit dialing
Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories that are members of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when dialing to initiate a telep ...
List of original NANP area codes
The original North American area codes were established by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1947, following the demonstration of regional Operator Toll Dialing during the World War II period. The program had the goal of speedi ...