Japanese telephone numbering plan

From Free net encyclopedia

Country Code: 81

Area codes (市外局番 "shigai-kyokuban") of selected major cities

 011  Sapporo
 022  Sendai
 0242 Aizu Wakamatsu
 025  Niigata 
 026  Nagano
 028  (next digit 6) Utsunomiya
 03   Tokyo
 043  (next digit 2 or 3) Chiba
 044  Kawasaki
 045  Yokohama
 048  Saitama (formed in 2001 by the merger of three cities)
 052  Nagoya
 054 and 0543 Shizuoka
 06   Osaka
 0742 Nara
 075  Kyoto
 076  Kanazawa
 0776 Fukui
 078  Kobe
 0792 Himeji
 082  Hiroshima
 0852 Matsue
 088  (next digit 6) Tokushima
 088  (next digit 8) Kochi
 089  (next digit 9) Matsuyama
 092  Fukuoka
 095  (next digit 8) Nagasaki
 096  Kumamoto
 098  Okinawa
 099  Kagoshima

Details about prefixes

In general, land line (primarily NTT) numbers are 10 digits long, with area codes in inverse proportion to city size.

 06 xxxx xxxx (Osaka)
 075 xxx xxxx (Kyoto)
 0742 xx xxxx (Nara)
 04992 x xxxx (Niijima island, Tokyo pref.)
 082486 xxxx (Takano, Hiroshima pref.)

Area codes increase from north to south; Sapporo in Hokkaido (the northernmost prefecture) has 011, and Setouchi-cho's 09973 is far to the south in Kagoshima. When the telephone system was devised, Okinawa was still under US occupation, so when it was returned to Japan in 1972, its telephone numbers were squeezed between Miyazaki (098x) and Kagoshima (099x), and begin with 0988, 0989, and 0980.

Other numbers are 11 digits long, such as mobile numbers, which have either the 090 or 080 prefixes followed by eight digits. Similarly, PHS phones have 070; dedicated internet lines have 050 (with the last four digits often matching the subscriber's land-based number), and personal pagers 020.

Especially during the 1990s, as plans were being drawn up to amalgamate mid-sized cities and towns into larger municipalities, telephone numbering systems were merged in advance. For example,

  07442 x xxxx Kashihara (Nara prefecture)
  07444 x xxxx Sakurai
  074452 xxxx Takatori
  074454 xxxx Asuka
  etc.

became:

  0744 2x xxxx Kashihara
  0744 4x xxxx Sakurai
  0744 52 xxxx Takatori
  0744 54 xxxx Asuka
  etc.

Many of these towns have in fact refused to merge, leaving callers with more digits to dial when making local calls. This is partially balanced by not having to dial an area code for the neighboring city.

Special emergency numbers in Japan include 110 for the police and 119 for the fire department.

Toll-free calls have the prefixes 0120 and 0800, and special-charge nationwide numbers begin with 0570 and 0990.

See also