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Can you guess the Brazilian dialing codes for each state?
How well do you know the United States dialing codes?
Can you match every Canadian area code to its province?
Can you identify which states use which license plate designs?
A phone number painted on a shopfront is one of the most common readable clues in Mexico, and the first two or three digits of it are a location. Mexico hands out its dialing codes (LADAs) per locality rather than per state, so there are close to four hundred of them, which sounds hopeless until you notice that they were handed out region by region: the leading digit alone puts you in the right corner of the country. This page is the whole plan, and the game drills it.
A Mexican phone number is ten digits: an area code, then the subscriber number.
Written out on a sign it usually appears as (664) 123 4567, sometimes with the
code in brackets, sometimes with a dash, and often with a 01 in front of it on
older paint, which was the long-distance prefix and is no longer dialled.
The code is three digits almost everywhere. Three cities are the exception and
take a two-digit code, which means their numbers split 55 1234 5678 rather
than 664 123 4567. Seeing a two-digit code is therefore a clue by itself,
before you have read the digits.
The leading digit runs roughly like this: 2 through the centre and east towards the Gulf, 3 in the west, 4 across the centre and the Bajío, 5 in and around Mexico City, 6 in the northwest, 7 in the centre and south, 8 in the northeast, and 9 in the southeast. The map in the game is coloured the same way, so the groups are visible while you play.
Each of those groups can be played on its own from the game's start dialog, which is the sane way to learn four hundred numbers: one region at a time, until the leading digit is automatic and the rest is recognition.
Mexico City, and by a wide margin the largest metropolitan area in the country, so this is the code most likely to turn up on a sign anywhere in Mexico. The two-digit split gives it away before you have read a digit.
The far northwest, up against the border. Everything in the 6 group sits in that corner of the country, so even a half-read code that starts with a 6 is worth a guess a long way from where the pin would otherwise land.
The other diagonal: the southeast, out towards the Caribbean coast. The 9 and 6 groups are the two ends of the country, which makes the leading digit worth more here than anywhere else in the plan.
LADA is the Mexican name for the area code, from Larga Distancia Automatica. It is the first two or three digits of a ten digit phone number and it identifies a locality rather than a state, which is why there are close to four hundred of them.
Ten, area code included. Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey use two digit codes followed by an eight digit number; everywhere else uses a three digit code followed by a seven digit number.
The three two digit codes, because they are the biggest cities and they are recognisable on sight: 55 for Mexico City, 33 for Guadalajara and 81 for Monterrey. After that, learn what each leading digit means rather than individual codes.
Close enough to be worth using. The plan was handed out region by region, so each leading digit sits in one part of the country: 6 in the northwest, 9 in the southeast, 8 in the northeast, and so on. The boundaries between groups are not tidy lines, but a code starting with 6 will not turn out to be in Yucatan.
Painted on shopfronts and workshop walls, on the side of vans, on billboards and on for-sale signs. Mexico advertises with phone numbers more than most countries do, which is what makes this clue worth training.
