Area codes 919 and 984

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 central and 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. 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. New 984 telephone numbers in the affected region began being assigned no later than August, 2014.