This is a list of North American telephone area coes in effect for the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). An area code is officially known as a Numbering Plan Area (NPA). An area code cannot start with a 0 or 1 because each digit represents either feature codes, operator assistance or the North American long distance prefix. Prior to 1995 all area codes had either 0 or 1 as the middle digit; all new codes from 1995 to present use 2 through 8.