Skip to main content

NPAs

The North American Numbering Plan (NANP), which primarily covers the United States, Canada, and the Carribean, is divided into 3-digit area codes (NPAs). The United States and Canada represent the largest use of the NPAs.

The NPAs API provides various data for each NPA including:

  • Geographic information (for example: state, country, latitude, longitude)
  • Demographic information (for example: population, largestCity, timeZone)
  • Status (for example: isSupported, isExhausted, isTollFree, isFuture, etc.)
  • Overlapping NPAs
  • Adjacent NPAs

NPAs are assigned by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA) according to the following rules:

  • NPAs can not start with 0 or 1, due to historical considerations related to 7-digit dialing
  • 211, 311, 411, 511, 611, 711, 811, and 911 are reserved for 3-digit "N11" dialing
  • 800, 822, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877, and 888 are used for (non-geographic) toll-free numbers
  • NPAs ending in repeated digits (N22, N33, etc.) are reserved as "easily recognizable codes" (ERCs). Notably 988 is used for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the United States and Canada
  • 976 is reserved to prevent confusion with 976-XXXX premium-rate calling services
  • NPAs with a "9" in the middle digit ("N9X" area codes) are reserved for future expansion

The most common use of the NPAs API is to obtain a list of all NPAs, for use in populating dropdowns or for associating with their corresponding states:

curl https://www.numberbarn.com/api/npas

Most NumberBarn APIs, including the NPAs API, return up to 300 results by default. To obtain a list of all NPAs, either pass ?$limit=1000 or paginate through to page 2 with ?$skip=300