Area codes 573 and 235 are telephone

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

s in the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is an integrated telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1, World Numbering Zone ...

(NANP) for most of the eastern half of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

outside the immediate St. Louis area, including the state capital of

Jefferson City Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Missouri. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 United States census, ranking as the List of cities in Missouri, 16th most popu ...

, as well as Columbia, Cape Girardeau,

Hannibal Hannibal (; ; 247 – between 183 and 181 BC) was a Punic people, Carthaginian general and statesman who commanded the forces of Ancient Carthage, Carthage in their battle against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. Hannibal's fat ...

, Rolla, and Sikeston. The largest cities are Columbia, home to the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

, and

, the state capital. The numbering plan area (NPA) extends across half of the width of the state, with the northeastern tip near the northeastern corner of the state, the

Lake of the Ozarks Lake of the Ozarks is a reservoir created by impounding the Osage River in the northern part of the Ozarks in central Missouri. Parts of three smaller tributaries to the Osage are included in the impoundment: the Niangua River, Grandglaize Creek ...

at the western tip and Doniphan as the southwestern tip. They also serves all of southeastern Missouri (including the

Missouri Bootheel The Missouri Bootheel is a Salient (geography), salient (protrusion) located in the southeasternmost part of the U.S. state of Missouri, extending south of 36°30′ north latitude, so called because its shape in relation to the rest of the sta ...

area) and areas adjacent to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

. 573 was created on January 7, 1996, in a split of area code 314, which was limited to the St. Louis metropolitan area in Missouri, and 235 was added on March 24, 2024 as part of an

overlay complex In telecommunications, an area code overlay complex is a telephone numbering plan that assigns multiple area codes to the same geographic numbering plan area (NPA). Area code overlays are implemented in territories of the North American Numbe ...

History

When the

American Telephone and Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was an American telecommunications company that provided voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to busi ...

(AT&T) created a universal North American telephone numbering plan for Operator Toll Dialing in 1947, Missouri was divided into two numbering plan areas (NPAs), which received the area codes 314 and 816. Area code 314 identified the eastern part of the state, from the northeast corner of the state at the Illinois border along a southwestern line near Columbia and

to the center of the state, and continuing southeast into the east side of the West Plains area to the Arkansas state line. The largest city of the area code was St. Louis on the Mississippi river in the east. By 1995, the telephone subscriber base had experienced substantial growth, threatening the exhaustion of the numbering pool. Relief planning entailed the division of the numbering plan area to create a new area code, 573, for most areas outside of the St. Louis metropolitan area, which retained area code 314. The area code split became effective at day end of January 7, 1996, with a permissive dialing period commencing until July 7, 1996, during which the new numbering plan area could be dialed with either area code. On May 1, 2022, the Missouri Public Service Commission (MPSC) approved an all-services distributed

for the 573 numbering plan area, effective March 24, 2024. On June 17, 2022, the NANP Administrator assigned area code 235 for the relief action, beginning with a permissive dialing period of six months on August 26, 2023 (as 573 was not affected by the 2021 requirement to change to

ten-digit dialing Ten-digit dialing is a telephone dialing procedure in the countries and territories of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is the practice of including the area code of a telephone number when Dialling (telephony), dialing to initiate a t ...

due to the implementation of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline).

Service area

Major cities * Columbia * Cape Girardeau * Farmington *

* Rolla * Poplar Bluff * Sikeston Other cities *

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

* Camdenton * Centralia * Dexter * Fulton * Hermann * Jackson *

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

* St. James * Sullivan * Waynesville

References

External links

{{Coord, 38.5, -92.0, format=dms, display=title, region:US-MO_scale:4000000 573 573 Telecommunications-related introductions in 1996 Telecommunications-related introductions in 2024 1996 establishments in Missouri