dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter) (03/12/91)
There was a request for Country/City code lists. It would not be
feasable to have such a thing online somewhere. It would be too big.
Consider that the list I have for the Netherlands contains about 1800
entries. (Yes, there are so many area codes in the Netherlands!) The
German list I have is still much larger. And those are only two
countries.
What might be feasable is a list that given the country code and the
area code returns an approximation of the area where the number points
to. In the Netherlands (as in Germany and many more European
countries) the initial part of an area code gives a rough indication
of the area involved. Example:
+31 2903 341
(this is just made up, and as such totally wrong of course, but it serves
well as an example) means:
+31 Netherlands
2903 Schellingwoude (really Uitdam; most Schellingwoude
subscribers have 020 area code numbers)
341 subscriber
I do not think you ever heard about Schellingwoude, but it is only 10
minutes walk from here. If I walk twenty minutes in that direction
the area code will change! But: the initial 29 means that the area is
in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam. The first two digits of a Dutch
area code give a main point of interest. It works similar in Germany
(although there you might want to use the first three digits).
Historical note: Originally all Dutch area codes were four digits.
The network was set up as a star: the initial two digits indicated a
main centre, the next digit indicited a subcentre and the final digit
indicated the final centre; which might have multiple exchanges. So,
while Amsterdam is 20 nowadays, it was 2900. 29: Amsterdam, 0: still
Amsterdam, 0: again still Amsterdam, but the 3 in the example above
means Uitdam. For most important cities the area code has been
changed to two digits. This was *not* done by dropping the last
digits (as the Amsterdam exmaple shows). I think a similar original
setup and modification is taking place in Germany.
I have lists for a number of European countries, but I am not really
willing to mail them on request, as that involves mounting a tape and
loading the files etc., and removing them afterwards. (Yes, our disks
are fairly full.)
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland dik@cwi.nl