These Countries Have Ridiculously Long Phone Numbers (And There’s An Interesting Reason Why)
Making a phone call is simple. In essence, one just needs to dial the number, hit the call button, and wait for the other person to respond. With an Apple iPhone, it is even simpler because ithas a hidden one-button call functionor by using the Siri voice command. In the United States, a telephone number is comprised of seven digits, plus a three-digit area code. While in Canada, the number of digits is 11, which includes the country code +1, the three-digit area code, and the seven-digit local number. According to the website worldpopulationreview.com, some countries have even longer telephone numbers, with one having a total of 17 digits.
The countries that have the longest phone number lengths are Japan, Germany, and Sweden, with 13-digit telephone numbers; Australia with a 15-digit number; and South Korea having 17-digit telephone numbers. The reason why these countries have a long phone number is because of the additional prefix digits required to connect to them. Japan, for example, would have either nine or 10-digit telephone number, plus its area code, which can be two or three digits, i.e., the Tokyo area code is +03, while Yokohama is +045.
The reason there are additional numbers aside from the main telephone number is that the telephone network utilizes a system to route calls across different areas of a country, and for international calls, for each nation. Prefix numbers called country codes allow direct international calls, which transfer the caller from their own country’s numbering system to the international one. This means that when calling an international number, one needs to add various additional numbers, which can include the country code, the area code, the prefix, and the line number, to be connected.
A number for each country
For country codes, it was the International Telecommunication Union that developed the system of unique identifiers for each country. The development of international country codes began in 1960 when the ITU added to the section E.29 of the ITU Red Book, which is a treaty that sets the international rules for radio-frequency spectrum and geostationary satellite orbits. By 1964, this was expanded to include a global numbering system, and by 1968, the definition of country codes was standardized. This numbering system gave country code +1 for America, +2 for Africa, +3 and +4 for Europe etc.
These were then further divided according to the capacity of each network, +33 for France, +44 for the U.K., ensuring that no more than 11 digits were dialed. It is worth noting that country codes can change for several reasons, such as geopolitical developments, network administration, and developments in technology. A good example of this was Germany’s reunification in 1990, which gave it a single country code of 49.
