The Lost Michigan Area Code – What Happened to 278?

Ask most long-time Michigan residents and they can likely rattle off many of the state's area codes - particularly the original ones dating back to the development of the long distance calling codes.. Starting with 313 in the Detroit area, 517 in mid-Michigan, 616 on the west side and 906 in the Upper Peninsula.

As cell phones and pagers and fax machines and the like began to proliferate at the dawn of the information age, numbers in those original area codes became scarce and new area codes were added.

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Many of those are now likely ingrained in you as well - think 810 around Flint, 734 in Ann Arbor, 248 for the northern Detroit suburbs, 269 in southwest Michigan and 989 in the middle of the mitten.

Area codes have been in the news recently with the coming introduction of an overlay to the 313 area code. No longer will the city of Detroit have only its iconic 313 when 679 joins Michigan's parade of area codes.

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Likely no one remembers the Michigan area code that never was - 278. The number, part of the North American Numbering Plan, had been reserved as an overlay for the 734 area code. Beyond Ann Arbor, 734 serves some the Downriver communities, western Wayne County and all of Washtenaw and Monroe counties.

The plans for deploying the 278 area code to give relief to the 734 code were cancelled and the overlay never deployed.