North American area
codes are sometimes called
NPAs, an
acronym for
Numbering Plan Area. This comes from the acronym
NANP (North American
Numbering
Plan). If you have a
relatively
old area code--one with a middle
digit of
0 or
1--it reflects the relative
population of your area when the NANP first came into
existence. Populous areas like
New York (212) got "low
dial-pull" numbers: ones that could be dialed
quickly on
rotary phones.