The original North American area codes were established by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T) in the immediate post-WWII period. The effort of creating a comprehensive and universal, continent-wide telephone numbering plan in North America had the eventual goal of direct distance dialing by telephone subscribers with a uniform destination addressing and call routing system for all public service telephone networks. The initial Nationwide Numbering Plan of 1947 established eighty-six numbering plan areas (NPAs) that principally followed existing U.S. state or Canadian provincial boundaries, but fifteen states and provinces were subdivided further. Forty NPAs were mapped to entire states or provinces. Each NPA was identified by a three digit area code used as a prefix to each local telephone number. The initial system of numbering plan areas and area codes was expanded rapidly in the following decades and established the North American Numbering Plan (NANP).
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