An area code is a part of a telephone number that denotes the broad area in which a phone call is based. For example, the area code for Los Angeles, California, is 310, and the area code for Las Vegas, Nevada, is 702.

Of course, all of this talk about area codes today is only relevant right now because we’re talking about Area Code Day — a holiday that’s observed annually on the 10th of November. This holiday pays homage to a system that was devised to prevent areas from running out of phone numbers that could be used.

The History of Area Code Day

In 1940, the first area codes were invented in the United States by The Bell System, a system of companies that was led by the Bell Telephone Company. They created these codes originally to help automate telephone calls from any two locations in the U.S. without having to have a human operator make the connection. They would later become useful in solving the problem of running out of the available pool of telephone numbers.

Amazing Facts About Telephone Numbers & Area Codes

Okay, perhaps we’re overhyping the fact that we found some pretty cool facts about telephone numbers and area codes during our research. We just got a little bit excited. We would like to list some of the facts that we’ve found, however. We’ve listed these facts below and hope that everyone finds them as interesting as we did.

• The first outdoor telephone cables in the U.S. were built in 1877, and they only stretched about 3 miles.
• In 1876, there were just two telephone sets. By 1915, there were 11 million phones.
• In the U.S., the code for emergency service is 911. In France, it’s 112, and in India, it’s 102.
• The emergency service number in Ireland is 112, and in Russia, it’s also 112.

Observing Area Code Day

We’re not entirely sure if there is an “official” way to celebrate Area Code Day. We’re not even sure how a person would observe this holiday. We suppose that people can observe it by learning more about the area code system or throwing parties that are “area code themed.” We’re just not sure many people will be doing that. We do think that quite a few people probably will use the hashtag #AreaCodeDay to spread the news about it though.