Area codes 919 and 984

North Carolina Area Codes

Area codes 919 and 984 are telephone area codes serving all or parts of 11 counties in the east-central area of the U.S. state of North Carolina. They serve the primary cities of Raleigh, Durham, Cary and Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and the surrounding suburban areas of the Research Triangle metropolitan area, as well as the outlying towns and nearby rural areas of Oxford to the north, Sanford to the south, Goldsboro to the southeast, and Mebane to the west.

History

Area code 919, the main area code, was split off from area code 704, the state's original area code, in 1954. It originally covered the entire eastern part of the state from Winston-Salem to Wilmington. 704 was reduced to cover Charlotte and all points west.

Despite North Carolina's explosive growth in the second half of the 20th century, this configuration remained in place for 39 years. In 1993, the western and southern portions of the area code were split off to form area code 910. In 1998, the northeastern portion was split off to form area code 252.

Area code 919 was initially slated for overlay with area code 984 in 2001. However, the overlay was deferred when the supply of numbers was deemed sufficient for the near term.^[1] Within a decade, however, the proliferation of cell phones and pagers meant that the implementation of 984 could no longer be delayed. In September 2011, the North Carolina Utilities Commission announced that the 984 area code was being pressed into service. Ten-digit dialing for local calls became optional on October 1, 2011, and became mandatory across the Triangle on March 31, 2012, a move which has resulted in thousands of wrong number calls to 9-1-1 instead of 919.^[2] New 984 telephone numbers in the affected region began being assigned no later than August, 2014.

Counties served

• Alamance (small portion in northeast, most of county is in 336 and 743)
• Chatham (except small portion in northwest which is in 336/743)
• Duplin (north-central portion, most of county is in 910)
• Durham
• Franklin (except portion in northwest, which is in 252)
• Granville
• Harnett (most of west and north is 919/984, rest of county is 910)
• Johnston
• Orange (except sliver in northwest, which is in 336/743)
• Wake
• Wayne (except sliver in southeast which is in 252)
• Lee

Major cities and towns

• Raleigh
• Apex
• Carrboro
• Cary
• Chapel Hill
• Clayton
• Durham
• Fuquay-Varina
• Garner
• Goldsboro
• Holly Springs
• Morrisville
• Research Triangle Park
• Sanford
• Smithfield

Cultural references

North Carolina native Petey Pablo paid respect to area code 919 on his debut album Diary of a Sinner: 1st Entry.

In the musical Rent, one of Alexi Darling's contact numbers left on Mark and Roger's answering machine has a 919 area code, even though she is an agent in New York City.

See also

• List of North Carolina area codes

References

1. ↑ Docket P-100, Sub 137B. North Carolina Utilities Commission PDF Archived October 3, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
2. ↑ WRAL. "Misdials to 911 continue year after Triangle starts 10-digit dialing". WRAL.com. Retrieved 23 September 2015.