Trace any Canadian phone number to its city, province, and carrier.

How Canadian area codes work

Canada shares the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) with the United States and several Caribbean nations. Every Canadian phone number is structured as an area code (called a numbering plan area, or NPA), followed by a 7-digit local number. The area code identifies the geographic region a number was originally assigned to — though with number portability and overlays, the original assignment no longer guarantees the physical location of the device.

Canada's first area codes were assigned in 1947. Just three codes — 902, 514, and 416 — covered the Maritimes, Quebec, and Ontario respectively. As the country grew, those huge regions were split. By the 2000s, most Canadian cities of any size had multiple overlay codes layered on top of the original assignment, because demand for new numbers outpaced what a single three-digit prefix could supply.

Today there are more than 40 Canadian area codes in active service, including province-wide overlays in Alberta and British Columbia, three overlays on the Island of Montreal, and a single shared code (867) covering all three northern territories. AreaTrace catalogues every one of them and the cities they reach.

What you can find on AreaTrace

• Geographic coverage — for each area code, the province or territory and a list of major cities served.
• Time zone — Canada spans six time zones; AreaTrace shows the IANA time zone for every code, including the half-hour offset used by Newfoundland (NST/NDT) and the no-DST oddity of Saskatchewan (CST).
• Overlay relationships — which other codes share the same geography, plus when each overlay was introduced.
• Carrier presence — which national and regional carriers operate in each numbering plan area.

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