Area code 574 is a telephone

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 ...

in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated 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, World Numbering Zone ...

(NANP) for the northern part of 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 so ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. It was created in a three-way

area code split In telecommunications, an area code split is the practice of introducing a new telephone area code by geographically dividing an existing numbering plan area (NPA), and assigning area codes to the resulting divisions, but retaining the existing a ...

from

area code 219 Area code 219 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for Northwest Indiana, including the state's portion of the Chicago metropolitan area. The numbering plan area includes the cities of Schererville, Chesterton, Lake Sta ...

in 2002.

History

In 1947, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) published the first configuration of proposed numbering plan areas (NPAs) for a new nationwide numbering and toll call routing system. Indiana was divided to receive two area codes. Area code 317 served the northern two-thirds of Indiana, while

area code 812 Area codes 812 and 930 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the southern third of the state of Indiana. The numbering plan area (NPA) includes Evansville and most of its suburbs, the Indiana portions of t ...

served the southern third. In the first change of the original plan in 1948, 317 was cut back to central Indiana, while the northern third of Indiana, including Gary, Hammond, East Chicago,

South Bend South Bend is a city in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. It lies along the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. It is the List of cities in ...

, Elkhart and

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in Allen County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 at the 2020 United S ...

, received area code 219. The northern third of Indiana was served by area code 219 for 54 years. By the end of the 20th century, 219 was on the verge of exhaustion of central office prefixes. The decision was made to implement a three-way split of the 219 territory. As the result of a random drawing, the middle portion, surrounding South Bend, received area code 574. The eastern portion (

) became

area code 260 Area code 260 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Indiana. Cities served include Angola, Auburn, Bluffton, Butler, Columbia City, Decatur, Fort Wayne, Huntingto ...

, while

Northwest Indiana Northwest Indiana, nicknamed "The Region" after the Calumet Region, is an unofficial region of Northern Indiana, northern Indiana, United States that is located at the northwestern corner of the state. Though there is no official definition of th ...

retained 219. The area codes split on January 15, 2002, with permissive dialing continuing until June 14, 2002. SBC information. Accessed May 11, 2006 Prior to October 2021, area code 574 had telephone numbers assigned for the central office code 988. In 2020, ''988'' was designated nationwide as a dialing code for the

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the United States, or Suicide Crisis Helpline in Canada, and formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, is a suicide prevention and crisis help line to a network of a large number of crisis ce ...

, which created a conflict for exchanges that permit seven-digit dialing. This area code was therefore scheduled to transition to

ten-digit dialing Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when Dialling (telephony), dialing to initiate a t ...

by October 24, 2021.

References

574 574 {{Areacode-stub