Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!decuac!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: dolf@idca.tds.philips.nl (Dolf Grunbauer) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Some Questions About International Country Codes Message-ID: Date: 21 Aug 89 14:53:01 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Organization: Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems, Lines: 35 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us Once I heard someone say that the country code for the Soviets happens to be 7 because of James Bond (yes, the famous British spy, also known as 007). Can someone tell me whether this true, or is it the other way around (i.e. Ian Flemming chose 007 as 7 was already the country code for the Soviets)? In fact, this leads to some more trivia questions, like: 1. When were the country codes established ? 2. Who did this and based on what rules ? 3. Why do America and Canada share the same number, and why is it 1 ? 4. How come some countries have a single digit country code, some have a two digits sequence (like PR China, which is probably big enough to have a 1 digit number), and some countries have a 3 digits prefix. 5. Are there any countries with a 4 digit country code ? 6. What happens when a new country is created (:-) like a "thuisland" or home-land in South Africa (you known, the countries South Africa makes and states that they are independant countries, but the rest of the world thinks differently) ? Do they all get new numbers ? 7. What happens when two countries join to one bigger country ? Like what happend when North & South Vietnam joined ? Do they use the North Vietnam country code number, or do they use two different numbers ? (The same might happen when the North & South Korea and East & West German get united, or maybe this will prevent them :-), or when Hong-Kong and Macao become part of the PR of China). Please note that I am only curious about telephone country numbers thus *NOT* about any involved political item (especially 6 & 7). -- Dolf Grunbauer Tel: +31 55 432764 Internet dolf@idca.tds.philips.nl Philips Telecommunication and Data Systems UUCP ....!mcvax!philapd!dolf Dept. SSP, P.O. Box 245, 7300 AE Apeldoorn, The Netherlands [Moderator's Note: I think the longest country code has to the one for the Vatican; it is six or eight digits, of which the final digits simply appear to be appended to the code for Italy. PT]