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Why is USA +1?

Published in Country Dialing Codes 2 mins read

The USA was assigned the country dialling code +1 as part of a system established by the International Telecoms Union in the early 1960s to conveniently divide the world into broad areas for telephone communication, especially considering the technology of mechanical telephone exchanges at the time.

The Origin of Country Dialling Codes

In the early 1960s, the International Telecoms Union, an association comprising network providers from various countries, convened to standardize international telephone dialling. This initiative was crucial for enabling direct international calls as the global telecommunications network grew.

The system developed was designed with the limitations and requirements of the then-prevalent mechanical telephone exchanges in mind. It was most convenient to organize the world into distinct, broad geographical areas, each assigned a specific numeric code.

The Assignment of +1 to the USA

As part of this global division, the area designated by the digit '1' was allocated to the USA. This made North America, including the USA, Canada, and several Caribbean nations, part of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), all sharing the initial +1 country code.

Other areas were assigned different codes as mentioned:

  • Area 1: USA (and other NANP countries)
  • Area 2: Africa
  • Areas 3 & 4: Europe
  • Area 5: South America and Mexico
  • Area 6: Oceania (Australasia and Pacific Islands)
  • Area 7: Russia and neighbouring countries
  • Area 8: East Asia and Special Services
  • Area 9: West & South Asia and Middle East

This systematic allocation simplified the routing of international calls in the era of mechanical switching technology by directing calls first to a broad region before further routing within that area.

For more details on the allocation process, you can refer to resources like the guardian.co.uk article on how telephone dialling codes were assigned to countries.