Special notes:

Country code +42 (Czech Republic and Slovakia) has divided into +420 for the Czech Republic and +421 for Slovakia, effective 02/28/97. There is no permissive dialing (parallel running) for this change -- all calls must now be dialed with the new country code.

Liechtenstein has been assigned country code +423; implementation is planned for 1999. Until the change takes effect, Liechtenstein will continue to use Switzerland's country code +41, city code 75.

Country code 881 is used for satellite services, with the next digit indicating the specific service. +881-6 is Iridium.

Country code 800 is Universal International Freephone Numbers (UIFN). These numbers are toll-free from any country that participates in the UIFN scheme and from which the number's owner elects to receive calls. The numbers are not the same as 1-800 numbers in North America or 0800 or 1800 or similar numbers in other countries.

Use of country codes +670 and +671 has been discontinued, as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam have joined the North American Numbering Plan (country code 1). As of July 1, 1998, you must use +1 670 for CNMI and +1 671 for Guam. (The new North American area codes match the previous international country codes.)

New country codes have been assigned for several European micro-states in the +37X range, and for several Asian former Soviet republics in the +99X range. No formal announcement of Kazakhstan's new country code has been made; the listing for +997 is purely speculation. Some of the new country codes have already gone into service, but others are pending. Available sources indicate that +376 Andorra and +377 Monaco have gone into effect, but +378 San Marino and +379 Vatican City are still pending, with no activation date specified. +993 Turkmenistan, +994 Azerbaijan, +995 Georgia, and +996 Kyrgyz Republic are active, but +992 Tajikistan and +998 Uzbekistan are still pending. Again, +997 for Kazakhstan is only speculation on a possible future change.

Country code +21 is officially a unified numbering scheme for Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Each country has reserved two or three of the +21X codes. However, only the codes shown are actually in use.

Country code +259 is officially assigned to Zanzibar. However, Zanzibar is a part of Tanzania -- Tanzania is the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar -- and is numbered under Tanzania's country code +255. There is no reason for Zanzibar to have requested a separate country code, nor is there any reason that the ITU (then the CCITT) should have granted this improper request. I have therefore omitted this code from the table, since it has never been used and will never be used for any purpose.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) is officially recognized by the ITU as a part of the People's Republic of China. The country code +886 is designated merely as "reserved," without reference to location. However, most calls to Taiwan originating outside of the People's Republic of China are routed using country code +886, as shown in the table above. Hong Kong was politically united with the PRC on July 1, 1997; no formal announcement has been made as to how or whether this will affect telephone numbering in the area.

Abbreviations: FYR Macedonia = Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; F.S. Micronesia = Federated States of Micronesia.

Additional information about international country codes and other numbering issues is available from the World Telephone Numbering Guide, maintained by Dave Leibold. In particular, several countries (Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Australia, France, and others) have recently undertaken or are planning to undertake significant changes in their national numbering plans.

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