Telephone numbers in South Africa
Telephone numbers in South Africa are administered by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa. On 16 January 2007, the country switched to a closed numbering plan. It became mandatory to dial the full nine-digit national telephone number. For calls within the country, this is prefixed by trunk code 0, which is often included in listings of the area code. Area codes within the system are generally organized geographically. Special services by Telkom have numbers with special formats.
When dialed from another country, the national number is prefixed with the appropriate international access code and the telephone country code 27.
Background
History
Numbers were allocated when South Africa had only four provinces, meaning that ranges are now split across the current nine provinces.Namibia
was integrated into the South African numbering plan. However, the International Telecommunication Union had already allocated country code 264 in the late 1960s.Following its independence, Namibia discontinued direct dialing from South Africa and replaced it with international dialing using country code 264. For example, for a call from South Africa to Windhoek, before and after 1992:
Lesotho
Calls to Lesotho could be made using the access code 050 instead of the international code 266; for example, to call Maseru from South Africa, subscribers would dial 0501.Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe
Calls to Botswana, Swaziland and Zimbabwe could similarly be made using the regional codes 0192, 0194 and 0191, respectively, instead of the international codes 267, 268 and 263.Number ranges
00
effective from 16 October 2006 and mandatory from 16 January 2007.01
The old Transvaal province, currently comprising Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and part of the North West:02
Two-thirds of the old Cape province, now comprising Western and Northern Cape:03
04
Remainder of one-third of old Cape province, now comprising Eastern Cape and eastern parts of the Western Cape:05
and Northern Cape06 (Cellular)
Cellular07 (Cellular)
08
Cellular
Special Services
''Note that from 10 November 2006, mobile number portability was introduced in the cellular market. The cellular prefixes as above are therefore not strictly applicable anymore, although they remain mostly unchanged.''09X XXX XXX (Premium-rate and machine-related numbers)
There are still some non-automated exchanges which use longer dialing codes, mostly for "farm lines" and remote areas with operator-assisted exchanges.09X XXX XXXX numbers are no longer in use in South Africa.