Area code 513

The regions shown in blue are in Ohio.

Area code 513 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the southwest of the U.S. state of Ohio, including Cincinnati and surrounding cities, such as Forest Park, Hamilton, Lebanon, West Chester, Mason, Maineville, Middletown, Norwood, Oxford, Harrison, Cleves, Miamitown, and Trenton.

History

The four original numbering plan areas of Ohio

Ohio was originally divided between four numbering plan areas (NPA)s the first definition of the nationwide telephone numbering plan of October 1947, one for each geographic quadrant of the state. AT&T assigned 513 to the southwestern quadrant, including Cincinnati and Dayton.

Due to the proliferation of cell phones and pagers in the 1990s, the numbering plan area had to be split in 1996 to provide more central office prefixes and telephone numbers. The eastern and northern portions, including Dayton, received area code 937.

In 2000, area code 283 was assigned to numbering plan area 513 for a future overlay plan. Although permissive dialing began on January 15, 2001, the implementation was suspended, because of the economic downturn and the return of telephone numbers as a result of the abandonment of service by competitive local telephone companies.^[1] As projected, 283 does not need to be implemented until at least 2024.^[2] This makes Cincinnati one of the largest cities where seven-digit dialing is still possible.

Before the public announcement of the original North American area codes in 1947, area code 513 had been considered for assignment in the western third of Iowa, i.e. west of Des Moines, including Sioux City and Council Bluffs. Instead, the area ended up getting 712.^[3]

Very similar to how Manhattan is known as "212", Cincinnati is sometimes colloquially referred to as the "513".

See also

• NANPA area code map of Ohio
• List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 513 Area Code

References