Why Is +91 Country Code Of India?

Image: Unsplash

13 March 2024

Whenever a mobile number is dialed across India, +91 is automatically prefixed to the number no matter which state or city it is from


Image: Unsplash

While people know +91 is the country code of India, have you wondered the reason behind it?


Image: Unsplash

Notably, International Telecommunication Union or ITU is the UN agency that provides the codes to all the countries 


Image: @ITU/X

Every country in the world has a different country code that needs to be dialed before the local phone number


Image: Unsplash

CCITT, the predecessor of the ITU, initially developed the initial list of country codes by dividing the globe into 9 different zones


Image: Unsplash

South, Central, West Asia and Middle East fell in the 9th zone, therefore India got +91 as its country code


Image: Pexels

All the countries under the 9th zone have their code starting from 9. The country code of Pakistan is +92, +93 for Afghanistan and so on


Image: Unsplash

The ITU considered factors such as population, economic importance, and other communication-related factors when assigning country codes


Image: Unsplash

The popular and populous countries that were part of the body overseeing the establishment of international codes, were given the shortest codes


Image: Pixabay

Only US and USSR were allocated single-digit codes, +1 and +7. Meanwhile, the smallest nations got 3-digit codes


Image: Pixabay

Check More Stories

Image: Reuters 

Image: Unsplash


ndtv.com