818 Area Code – Los Angeles, California: Location, Time Zone & History

Area code 818 is the number the San Fernando Valley calls its own, and pop culture made sure everyone knew it: Frank Zappa and Moon Unit Zappa's 1982 song "Valley Girl" turned Valley-girl slang into a nationwide phenomenon and cemented 818 as shorthand for the Valley itself. The code was carved out of area code 213 on January 7, 1984, taking the San Fernando Valley and the surrounding foothill communities out of the original Los Angeles numbering plan.

818 gave up territory of its own in 1997, when the eastern San Gabriel Valley split away to form area code 626. By the mid-2000s the remaining Valley footprint was running short on central-office codes, so regulators layered on an overlay rather than splitting again: area code 747 was approved by the CPUC on April 24, 2008 and entered service May 18, 2009, with the first 747 numbers issued that October.

The Valley is best known as a home of American film and television, with Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Studios lots in Burbank and Universal Studios just across the line in Universal City. Less famously, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sits physically within 818 territory in La Canada Flintridge, even though it's commonly associated with neighboring Pasadena in the 626 complex.