The UK phone directory is also known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan and is regulated by UK Government Office of Communication

Before starting talking about UK phone directory, I must mention that if you want to make a call from outside UK you must know the country code and the international call prefix. The international code prefix is 00 and the country code for UK is 44. All national numbers have 9 or 10 digits and all mobiles phones have a 10 digit number.

Area codes in UK are made of 2 up to 5 digits. Region with shorter area codes (large cities) permit the allocation of more telephone numbers because the private number has more digits, this situation is backward for small towns where the area code has more digits.

As an example, the code for London (the most populated town in UK) is 020, for Portsmouth the area code is 023 and for Cardiff is 029.

You see that areas codes are starting with zero. The prefix “0” must be dialed is you are making the call within UK, and if you are making the call from the same area is no need to dial the area codes. When you are making the call from outside UK you must not dial the “0” prefix.



As a short example if you want to call your friend that is living in London and you are not in UK you must dial 00 44 20 xxxxxxx, where xxxxxxx represent his telephone number, but if you are in Time Square and you want to make a surprise to him that you are in London and you want to meet him dial just his telephone number from a public telephone.

In addition, if you know the friend address or name you can access a web phone directory as one below.

http://www.ukphonebook.com/. These phone directories can be free of charge (with a small chance to find what you need), or like most of them you need to pay a small tax.

You can identify UK mobile telephone numbers after the prefix that now is 075xx, 077xx, 078xx, 079xx.

I had put below a web page that has all the area codes from UK.



http://www.timezonedistance.com/dialing-codes/travel.php?q=UK

UK phone directory contain also the two emergency numbers used, the 999 (traditional emergency number) and 112 that is a European Union standard and can be used in all EU states. This two numbers can put you in contact with police, fire service, ambulance, mountain rescue or coastguard.

Calling from or to UK is pretty much the same as in any country, so do not let yourself  numb by area codes, when to use them or not, when to dial “0” prefix, just enjoy calling your friends.