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Do you have many near and dear ones residing in the State Of New Jersey? Or do you need to dial numbers in the State Of New Jersey frequently? If yes, you must have entered the three-digit area code before dialing the phone number of your contact.
With the population of New Jersey growing with every passing day, there has been an increase in the number of area code splits, mergers and overlays. For this reason, it is important for you to know a little about the area code of New Jersey so that you face no difficulties dialing the number of your contact.

The first area code of the State of New Jersey was 201. The area code 201 enjoys the privilege of being the first area code that was assigned to any State of the United States of America under the North American Numbering Plan of 1947. Today the area code 201 primarily provides telephone services to the counties of Hudson, Bergen and parts of Essex and Passaic.

As mentioned above, the area code 201 was the first original code that was assigned to the USA in 1947; however, the code effectively came into service in 1951. In the same year, the first directly dialed long distance phone call was made under this area code from Englewood, New Jersey to Alameda, California. It served the State of New Jersey until 1958 till the area code 609 was introduced for the southern part of New Jersey.

After the spilt in 1958, the area code 201 served the major northern counties like Essex, Bergen, Hudson Union, Morris, Passaic Somerset, Middlesex, Monmouth, Sussex and Warren in New Jersey. The Southern counties of Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware and the Southern Jersey Shore came under the new area code of 609.

Another significant development in the history of the area code 201 occurred on June 8th 1991, when the area code 908 was split from it to serve the Northern and the Central areas of the state. The area code 201 continued to serve most of the northern areas of the State.

In the post 1990's, New Jersey witnessed major developments in the form of businesses flourishing in the northern part of the state. The advent of cell phones and the internet also changed the face of things to a considerable extent. In order to handle the pressure of the increasing demand for phone services the number of area codes in the State grew from three to six to meet phone demands. This led to another development on June 1st, when the area code 201 was further spilt into a new area code 973 to cater to the north western counties of New Jersey, Morris and Sussex.

Today the area code 201 caters to 14 counties in New Jersey and has a total of 742 telephone exchanges under it that are successfully offering phone services to an approximate population of about 1, 651 404 people in the State. So the next time you need to access a phone number in New Jersey do not forget to check under which area code your number falls!