What is a country code?

Answer 1

A telephone country code is a one-, two-, or three-digit number representing a country or an overseas territory. To place an international call, you dial the international access prefix of the country you are calling from, then the country code, and then the city code and subscriber number. Country code +1 is North America, including the US, Canada, and various Caribbean islands. Country code +7 is Russia and Kazakhstan. The United Kingdom is country code +44, Mexico is +52, and Lebanon is +961, for just a few examples.

There are also country codes in other contexts. For example, the ISO assigns two-letter country codes that are used for internet top-level domains and currency codes.

Answer 2

For international telephone calls, each country is given a country code. There are only two single-digit country codes: +1 for North America (US, US territories in Caribbean/Pacific, Canada, and 17 Caribbean-ish islands from Bermuda to Trinidad) and +7 for Russia and Kazakhstan (formerly for the whole USSR). The rest of the country codes are 2 or 3 digits. With a few exceptions, +2 is Africa, +3 and +4 are Europe, +5 is the Western Hemisphere except for the +1 countries, +6 is the Pacific, +8 is east Asia, and +9 is Central Asia and the Middle East. No country codes begin with '0'; if you see "country code 00XXX", for instance, it should be written as "country code +XXX" instead.

To dial an international call, you dial your international access prefix (depending on where you are, it might be 00, 011, 8•10, or various other prefixes), then the international country code, the city code (or area code), and then the local number. One tricky part is that you often (but not always) drop the leading '0' of the national area code for international calling. For example, Liverpool is 0151 for calls within the UK, but internationally you dial it as +44 151. The plus sign means "insert your international access prefix here."

Many mobiles allow you to enter numbers in international format. The mobile network automatically inserts the appropriate prefixes and routes the call accordingly, whether you're in your home country, in the same foreign country as the number you want to reach, or in a third country.