Have you ever thought why the telephone area code of Istanbul is 0212 and not 0340? Today, we will also talk about how the area codes in Turkey are determined, especially 212, which is the telephone area code of New York.
Just as every country has a telephone area code, every city also has a telephone area code. For example, the area code of our country is +90. This area code must be entered when making a call from abroad. Every city in our country has a code. Due to its population and being on two different continents, there are two of these telephone area codes in Istanbul. The first of these Istanbul European side with “0212”1 and the other with “0216” belongs to the Anatolian side of Istanbul. Well, do you know how these phone area codes are given, especially how “0212” has a history?
For this we need to take you back a bit. Even though we don’t need it now, it was used in houses in the past. There were rotary phones. In these phones, numbers were dialed and thus calls were made. Let’s take a closer look at where these phone area codes come from.
Where does Istanbul’s telephone area code “0212” come from?
When we look at the system of area codes, we see the system taken from the PTT and the USA. In the days of dial-up phones, dialing a number was extremely challenging. For each number, pulses were sent to the exchange. This system, which continued in the form of one blow for “1” and two blows for “2”, required a special work especially in cities with high population density. In cities with high population density, the sum of the digits consisted of small numbers.
Let’s look at the US leg of this system. Before the PTT brought this system to Turkey, it was already used in the USA. In the USA, the codes “212” for New York and “312” for Chicago were used. Since these numbers could be used with lower pulses, it was possible to make calls more quickly. The PTT, which brought this system to Turkey, is the one with a dense population. He gave the area code “212” to Istanbul. Ankara, on the other hand, received the code “312”.
Does this system still work?
In fact, it was not necessary for the PTT to bring this system to Turkey. The end of dial-up telephones was reached, and numbers were now reported not by pulses but by tones. In this system, it didn’t matter which number was big or which was small. For this reason, Istanbul and all other cities could get their provincial license plate numbers. For example, Istanbul could be “340”.
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Area codes in our country continue in proportion to the population.
After PTT bought this system from the USA, it gave codes according to the population size of the cities. For example, cities such as İzmir(232), Eskişehir(222) had smaller numbers, while cities such as Hakkari(438) and Iğdır(476) had larger numbers. While PTT was establishing this system, unlike the USA, it added a special detail for numbers. You can tell if a city is in the west, middle, or east by the first number of its area code.
Today we explained to you where area codes come from. Do you want more content like this? You can share your thoughts with us in the comments section.