803 Area Code – Columbia, South Carolina: Location, Time Zone & History

Columbia and South Carolina's central Midlands carry area code 803, assigned in October 1947 as one of the original 86 area codes and, for 48 years, the only area code the entire state needed. That changed with two geographic splits: Upstate cities Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson broke off as 864 on December 3, 1995, and the coastal Lowcountry, including Charleston, Myrtle Beach, and Hilton Head, followed as 843 on March 22, 1998, leaving 803 to the Midlands around Columbia. A further overlay, 839, entered service May 26, 2020, after the state PSC approved it amid projected exhaustion of central office codes.

The region's identity is bound up with government and the military: Columbia is South Carolina's capital, home to the State House and the University of South Carolina, while nearby Fort Jackson trains roughly half the U.S. Army's incoming soldiers each year. Aiken, near the Georgia border, has long served as a winter training ground for thoroughbred racehorses, giving the area a steeplechasing tradition distinct from the rest of the state.

• 803 split into 864 (Upstate, 1995) and 843 (Lowcountry, 1998)
• 839 overlay added in 2020
• Cities served include Rock Hill, Sumter, Aiken, and Orangeburg