Area codes 514, 438, and 263 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 of 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

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and most of its on-island suburbs, specifically the

Island of Montreal The Island of Montreal (, ) is an island in southwestern Quebec, Canada, which is the site of a number of municipalities, including most of the city of Montreal, and is the most populous island in Canada. It is the main island of the Hochelag ...

and

Île Perrot Île Perrot () is an island west of the island of Montreal in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. Part of the Hochelaga Archipelago, the island lies between Lake Saint-Louis and Lac des Deux-Montagnes. The isl ...

in the Canadian province of

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. Area code 514 was one of the

original North American area codes The original North American area codes were established by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1947. The assignment was in accord with the design of a uniform nationwide telephone numbering plan that supported the goal of dialin ...

assigned by

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

in 1947. The original numbering plan area (NPA) was split twice: in 1957 to create

area code 819 Area codes 819, 873, and 468 are overlay telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for central and western Quebec, Canada, including the Quebec portion of the National Capital Region, and the Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay ...

and in 1998 to create area code 450. In 2006, the entire remaining 514 area was assigned a second area code, 438, in an

overlay plan 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 ...

that made

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 ...

mandatory in the Montreal area. Area code 263 was added to the overlay in October 2022. The incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the service area is

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in the province ...

. The major competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) are

Vidéotron Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company founded in 1964. It's active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Qu ...

Telus Telus may refer to: * Telus Corporation, a Canadian publicly traded holding company ** Telus Communications, a telecommunications company ** Telus Digital, a technology company ** Telus Health, a health technology provider ** Telus Mobility T ...

, and Rogers.

History

When Montreal's local calls were handled manually by

operators Operator may refer to: Mathematics * A symbol indicating a mathematical operation * Logical operator or logical connective in mathematical logic * Operator (mathematics), mapping that acts on elements of a space to produce elements of another ...

, the caller requested the destination by name, before the first (four-digit) local telephone numbers were assigned in July 1881. In 1898,

exchange names A telephone exchange name or central office name was a distinguishing and memorable name assigned to a central office. It identified the switching system to which a telephone was connected, and facilitated the connection of telephone calls betwe ...

''Main'', ''Westmount'', ''Uptown'', and ''East'', were added before the number. The initial

rotary dial A rotary dial is a component of a telephone or a telephone switchboard that implements a signaling technology in telecommunications known as pulse dialing. It is used when initiating a telephone call to transmit the destination telephone numb ...

exchange, ''Lancaster'', was deployed on April25, 1925. Subscribers dialled two letters of an exchange name and four digits (2L+4N) and so "Lancaster 1234" was dialled as LA-1234 (52-1234). The initial area codes were created in 1947 as routing codes for operator-assisted calls. Quebec and

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

were the only provinces that received multiple area codes. Quebec was split between area codes 514 and 418. Area code 514 was originally assigned to the entire western half of Quebec from the Canada–US border to the

Hudson Strait Hudson Strait () in Nunavut links the Atlantic Ocean and the Labrador Sea to Hudson Bay in Canada. This strait lies between Baffin Island and Nunavik, with its eastern entrance marked by Cape Chidley in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut ...

. The area nominally included several remote areas in the far northern portion of the province that at the time did not have telephone service. When the

Bell System The Bell System was a system of telecommunication companies, led by the Bell Telephone Company and later by the AT&T Corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), that dominated the telephone services industry in North America fo ...

implemented

direct distance dialing Direct distance dialing (DDD) is a telecommunications service in North America by which a caller may call any other subscriber outside the local calling area without operator assistance, DDD was introduced in the United States in 1951, on a tri ...

(DDD) for content-wide service using a seven-digit local telephone number, prefixed by a three-digit area code, Montreal and Toronto, the largest Canadian cities, still used six-digit (2L-4N) numbering plans. Between 1951 and 1958, telephone numbers were lengthened by adding one digit (2L-5N) to be compatible. Numbering plan area code 514 was split in 1957 to create

for most of western Quebec, from

Estrie Estrie () is an List of Quebec regions, administrative region of Quebec that comprises the Eastern Townships. ''Estrie'', a French neologism, was coined as a derivative of ''est'', "east". Originally settled by anglophones, today it is about 90 pe ...

(

Sherbrooke Sherbrooke ( , ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François River, Saint-François and Magog River, Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territ ...

) to the

border, with the unserved far northern portion nominally added to 418 (and later moved to 819). Area code 514 was reduced to the region surrounding Montreal. That configuration remained unchanged for 41 years. In 1998, the off-island suburbs ( Laval,

Montérégie Montérégie () is an administrative region in the southwest part of Quebec. It includes the cities of Boucherville, Brossard, Châteauguay, Longueuil, Saint-Hyacinthe, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield and Vaudreuil-Dorion. ...

, etc.) received area code 450, which now completely surrounds 514. That left 514 as the Island of Montreal and a few surrounding smaller islands, which makes it one of the six pairs of ''doughnut area codes'' in the numbering plan and one of two in Canada, the other being Toronto's area code 416. The 1998 split was intended as a long-term solution to a shortage of available numbers in Canada's second-largest toll-free calling zone. However, within less than a decade, 514 was close to exhaustion because of the proliferation of computer, pager, and cell phone technologies. The problem was exacerbated by Canada's inefficient system of number allocation. Unlike the United States, Canada does not use

number pooling Telephone number pooling, thousands-block number pooling, or just number pooling, is a method of allocating telephony numbering space of the North American Numbering Plan in the United States. The method allocates telephone numbers in blocks of 1,0 ...

as a relief measure. Every competing carrier is assigned blocks of 10,000 telephone numbers, which correspond to a single central office prefix, in every rate centre in which it plans to offer service. Once a telephone number is allocated to a carrier and rate centre, it cannot be reused elsewhere, even when a rate centre has more than enough numbers to serve it. That resulted in thousands of wasted telephone numbers. Many larger cities have multiple rate centres, which have never been amalgamated. Montreal is an exception since it is Canada's second-largest rate centre. The number allocation problem was not as severe in Montreal as in other areas of Canada since numbers tend to be used up fairly quickly. However, numbers from the suburban areas to Montreal could not be reassigned, and it became apparent that the area needed another area code. On November 4, 2006, numbering plan area 514 was overlaid with area code 438, which required

for all subscribers in the Montreal area, even for local calls. By then, overlays had become the preferred relief measure in Canada, as they affect existing subscribers the least and provide a workaround for the number allocation problem. No area codes have been split in Canada since 1999. Area code 438 was considered for overlaying 450 as well, but a later decision determined instead that 579 would be the overlay code. In February 2017, area code 263 was reserved as the third area code in the region, and was placed in service on October 22, 2022.

Service area

Côte Saint-Luc Côte Saint-Luc () is a city on the Island of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. It is a mostly residential suburb of Montreal, within which it forms an enclave. The city is primarily English-speaking, with a large Jewish community. Geography Côte S ...

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

, L'Île-Dorval,

Montréal-Est Montreal East (, ) is an on-island suburb in southwestern Quebec, Canada, on the island of Montreal. Montreal-Est has been home to many large oil refineries since 1915. History The formation of Montréal-Est as a municipality was initiated in ...

, Montreal West,

Mount Royal Mount Royal (, ) is a mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The city's name is derived from the mountain's name. The mountain is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentian M ...

Westmount Westmount () is a city on the Island of Montreal, in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is an enclave of the city of Montreal, with a population of 19,658 as of the 2021 Canadian census. Westmount is home to schools, an arena, a pool, a public li ...

— most of (514)/(438) except as listed below *

Dollard-des-Ormeaux Dollard-des-Ormeaux (; commonly referred to as D.D.O. or simply Dollard) is a city and a predominantly English-speaking suburb of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is the most populous suburb on the Island of Montreal. The town was na ...

— (514) 309, 421, 472, 491, 533, 542, 545, 613, 615, 676, 683, 684, 685, 752, 763, 822 (438) 894 *

Dorval Dorval (; ) is an Greater Montreal, on-island suburban City (Quebec), city on the island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. In 2016, the Canadian Census indicated that the population increased by 4.2% to 18,980. Although the city has t ...

— (514) 300, 307, 403, 420, 422, 469, 471, 492, 532, 538, 552, 556, 600, 631, 633, 634, 636, 637, 639, 780, 828, (438) 264, 600, 819, 891 * L'Île-Perrot, Notre-Dame-de-l'Île-Perrot, Pincourt, Terrasse-Vaudreuil — (514) 320, 425, 446, 453, 477, 478, 536, 539, 612, 646, 901, 902, (438) 257, 638, 700, 890 *

Baie-d'Urfé Baie-D'Urfé (, ; previously spelled Baie d'Urfé or Baie d'Urfee) is an Greater Montreal, on-island suburb of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is part of the West Island area of the Island of Montreal. As part of the 2002–2006 municipal reorganiz ...

Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, northwest of central London and southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High Wycombe. The ...

, Kirkland,

Pointe-Claire Pointe-Claire (, ) is a Quebec local municipality within the Urban agglomeration of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in Canada. It is entirely developed, and land use includes residential, light manufacturing, and retail. As of the 2021 cen ...

Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue () is an Greater Montreal, on-island suburb located at the western tip of the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is the second oldest community in Montreal's West Island, having been founded as a parish ...

, Senneville — (514) 319, 426, 427, 428, 457, 459, 500, 505, 534, 541, 558, 630, 671, 674, 693, 694, 695, 697, 782, 783, 900, (438) 265, 500, 538, 893 A few western Montreal neighbourhoods were never combined into the main Montreal rate centre and therefore have a reduced subset of the Montreal local calling area. *

Île Bizard Île Bizard () is an island near the Island of Montreal in the Hochelaga Archipelago region. It is one of the three populated islands within the city of Montreal, along with the Island of Montreal and Nuns' Island (Île des Soeurs). The islan ...

, Pierrefonds, Roxboro,

Sainte-Geneviève Saint Genevieve or Sainte-Geneviève may refer to: * Saint Genevieve (419/422–512), the patron of Paris * Saint Geneviève de Loqueffret (10th century), a local saint from Loqueffret Parish close, Loqueffret, Brittany Buildings * Bibliothèque ...

— (514) 305, 308, 479, 535, 547, 551, 565, 620, 624, 626, 675, 696, 700, 784, 785, (438) 818, 895 * Lachine — see Dorval

References

External links

CNA exchange list for area +1-438Official planning letter
on NANPA's website.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Area Codes 514 And 438 514 Communications in Quebec Montreal 1947 establishments in Quebec