220 Area Code – Newark, Ohio: Location, Time Zone & History

Southeastern and central Ohio's numbering plan carries two area codes layered over the same territory. The underlying code, 740, was formed by a geographic split of 614 on November 8, 1997, and it went on to serve a mostly rural stretch of the state. As available numbers in that plan began to run short, regulators added 220 as an all-services overlay, putting it into service on April 22, 2015 after exhaust studies pointed to that year as the tipping point. The transition followed the now-familiar overlay pattern: permissive ten-digit dialing started September 20, 2014, with mandatory ten-digit dialing taking effect March 21, 2015, just ahead of the new code's activation.

The 740/220 region centers on Newark but extends across a wide, largely rural swath of the state, reaching communities such as Delaware, Lancaster, Zanesville, Athens, and Chillicothe. It is Ohio's largest area code by geographic size, and the local economy reflects that spread-out, small-city and farmland character rather than a single dense urban core.

Business activity in the area draws on a mix of sectors:

• Agriculture
• Manufacturing
• Logistics and distribution
• Healthcare
• Higher education

Beyond its economic footprint, the code carries a small piece of NANP trivia: 220 is the lowest-numbered area code that contains neither a 0 nor a 1 as its middle digit, a detail that sets it apart within the broader numbering system even as it continues to serve the everyday communication needs of the communities across the 740 region.