Area code 562

Area code 562 is a California telephone area code that was split from area code 310 on January 25, 1997. It is the area code for much of southeastern Los Angeles County, California, and parts of northern Orange County, California.

Prior to November 2, 1991; this region had been part of area code 213. On that date, most of the western and southern portions of the old 213 region became area code 310. On January 25, 1997, the southern portion of the old 310 territory split again to become the 562 area code.

562 was originally destined to be an overlay code for cellular telephones and pagers for the existing 310 area, to go into service in late 1995, to be extended to overlay the 213 and 818 areas the following year. However the plans were changed to a simple split of 310, as the California Public Utilities Commission decided that overlay would have disadvantaged customers of smaller companies in requiring ten-digit dialing. Overlays were a new concept at the time, and met with considerable resistance due to the need for ten-digit dialing.

One anomaly in this area code is that all of it is in Los Angeles County except for the cities of Seal Beach and Los Alamitos, which are in the very northwest corner of the Orange County coastline, portions of the city of La Habra, and the very small and northwest part of the city of Brea in the very northwest corner of inland Orange County. These exceptions could exist because, at the time of 310's creation, Pacific Bell (now AT&T Inc.) was the primary telephone company for most of Southern California, whereas this region's primary telephone company was GTE (now Verizon). In fact, when this region was originally split from the 213 area code to become the 310 area code, Pacific Bell, being the primary local telephone company for this area (and had authority to decide what codes stayed in 213 and which ones moved), chose to move all of GTE's area code 213 exchanges into the 310 area code.

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