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Telephone numbers in Greece

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Overview

Geographical area codes start with the digit 2. There are currently two-, three-, and four-digit area codes. The only two-digit area code is 21 for the Athens Metropolitan area; three-digit codes are used for the cities of Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa, Heraklion, Kavala, and Tripoli. The rest of the codes are four-digit codes.

Generally speaking, the second digit of a geographical area code signifies a broader geographical area of Greece. That is how area codes are sorted in this article.

Two-digit codes are used with eight-digit subscriber numbers, three-digit codes with seven-digit numbers, and four-digit codes with six-digit numbers, so that the full telephone number is always ten digits.

Subscriber numbers in most areas start with 0. That is the digit that was inserted between the area code and the subscriber number to form the new ten-digit numbering plan back in 2002. Thus, many Greeks erroneously think that the area codes include this leading 0. For example, they think that Athens's area code is 210 while, actually, Athens's area code is 21, with 0 being the first digit of the subscriber number.

Subscriber numbers starting with 0 are assigned to the former monopoly OTE. In bigger cities like Athens and Thessaloniki, subscriber numbers starting with digits other than 0 are becoming more and more common, especially amongst business subscribers. In this case, many people think that the area code is different. For example, a subscriber number in Athens might start with 211, with people thinking that 211 is a distinct area code from 210 while, in reality, both numbers are in the 21 area code and the third digit of the number belongs to the subscriber number.

In 2001-2002, Greece moved to a closed ten-digit numbering scheme in two stages, with the result that subscribers' numbers changed twice. For example, before the change, a number in Athens would have been dialed as follows:

In 2001, a '0' was added after the area code, which was incorporated into the subscriber number:

Finally, in 2002, the leading '0' was changed to a '2' (for geographic numbers) :

For mobile phone numbers, the leading '0' was changed to a '6'.

Number portability may obscure the carrier responsible for geographical and non-geographical (mobile, toll-free, premium rate) numbers. All geographical codes (21x, 231x) end in a number from 0 to 6 (210 or 212 for Athens, 2310 or 2312 for Thessaloniki). Numbers whose code ends in "0" are or were originally operated by OTE. The same applies to mobile phones: All mobile codes (69x) end in 0,3,4,5,7,8 or 9 (690, 698). Mobile code "696" is assigned to OTE pagers. Numbers starting with 690 and 693 were originally assigned to WIND, with 694 and 695 to Vodafone, with 697 and 698 to Cosmote and with 699 to Q-Telecom until 2007 when it merged with WIND.

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