Background
A standard United Kingdom fixed telephone number (i.e. a landline, or geographical number, as opposed to a mobile telephone number or special rate non-geographic fixed line) is divided into two parts, an STD code (area code) and a local number. The STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) code indicates the geographical area of the number, and is dialled before the local number. When dialling within the same area, this area code can be omitted. Some telephone service providers differentiate ordinary calling costs using the relevant area code(s).
Until STD was introduced, only telephone operators could connect calls over the trunks (long distance links between major exchanges). A subscriber would have to dial 0 for the operator and then request a long distance call. As STD was introduced area by area the meaning of the 0 changed, and it was now the trunk prefix used to raise a call automatically to the trunk dialling level - what the telephone companies now call a National call. The new code of 100 was introduced for calling an operator. Thus, the 0 at the start is not really part of an area code, which is why international callers dialling into the UK must not dial it.
The area code plus local number can have varying total and composite digit lengths, for historical and operational reasons, but as a rule they do not exceed 11 digits in combined length. For readability, and to distinguish geographic location, telephone numbers are often spoken, displayed and published with a gap between the area code and local number, and/or with the area code in brackets. Problems occur for the reader when this spacing or formatting is incorrectly applied by the publisher.
Read more about this topic: UK Telephone Code Misconceptions
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