Area codes 704 and 980

Other major cities in the service area are Gastonia, Kannapolis, Concord, Mooresville, Salisbury, Statesville, and Shelby.

704 was reduced to the western third of the state, from Charlotte through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Tennessee border.

However, by the mid-1990s, Charlotte's rapid growth and the ensuing demand for telephone lines made a split inevitable.

The number shortage was exacerbated by the proliferation of cell phones, pagers and fax machines.

To solve the problem, it was decided to assign 980 to Charlotte as North Carolina's first overlay.