575 Area Code – Las Cruces, New Mexico: Location, Time Zone & History

Southern and eastern New Mexico carry a regional identity shaped as much by open desert and military testing grounds as by the cities that serve them. Las Cruces, the largest city on this numbering plan, sits amid the Mesilla Valley's pecan and chile pepper farms, while Roswell—site of the widely publicized 1947 "Roswell incident"—has built a lasting tourism industry around UFO lore. Nearby, White Sands National Park protects the world's largest gypsum dune field, and Spaceport America, near Truth or Consequences, is the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport and home base for Virgin Galactic.

This territory, assigned area code 575 effective October 7, 2007, was carved out of 505, which had covered the entire state since the original 1947 numbering plan. The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved the geographic split by a 3-2 vote in 2006, with 505 retaining the Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Farmington, and Gallup corridor and the new code covering the rest of the state, including Roswell, Carlsbad, Clovis, Alamogordo, and Hobbs. It is notable as the last area code in the United States created via a geographic split rather than an overlay. Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project laboratory, stayed with 505.

Beyond its cultural landmarks, the economy draws on oil and gas extraction in the Permian Basin, potash mining around Carlsbad, military and aerospace activity tied to White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base, and higher education through New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.