A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used

in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other

telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone
network, reachable by a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbering plans
are defined in each of administrative regions of the public switched telephone
network (PSTN) and they are also present in private telephone networks.
Numbering plans may follow a variety of design strategies which have often arisen from
the historical evolution of individual telephone networks and local requirements. A broad
division is commonly recognized, distinguishing open numbering plans and closed
numbering plans. A closed numbering plan imposes a fixed number of digits to every
telephone number, while an open numbering plan allows variance in the numbers of digits.
Many numbering plans subdivide their territory of service into geographic regions
designated by an area code, which is a fixed-length or variable-length set of digits
forming the most-significant part of the dialing sequence to reach a telephone subscriber.
The North American Numbering Plan (country code 1) is a closed numbering plan[1]
[unreliable source?] which prescribes ten digits for each complete destination routing code. A
complete telephone number consists of three parts. The most significant part is a threedigit Numbering Plan Area (NPA) code (area code). Each area code comprises a set of
three-digit central office (CO) codes, which are unique to each telephone exchange within
an NPA. The remaining four digits are the specific station number assigned to each
telephone. Other countries with open numbering plans may use variable-length numbers;
in some, such as Finland, subscriber numbers may vary in length even within a local
exchange.