What is a Country Calling Code?
A country calling code is the prefix dialled before a national phone number to reach another country — +1 for the United States and Canada, +44 for the United Kingdom, +971 for the UAE.
The codes are assigned by the ITU under standard E.164. They are one to three digits, and the shortest were allocated earliest: +1 covers the United States, Canada and twenty other North American Numbering Plan territories, while +7 covers Russia and Kazakhstan.
The leading "+" means "international access prefix", whatever that is where you are standing — 011 from the US, 00 across most of Europe. Writing +1 551 305 4842 rather than 011 1 551 305 4842 makes a number dialable from anywhere, which is why E.164 requires it.
A common confusion, especially in the US: +1 is a country code, while 212 or 702 is an area code within it. A search for "954 country code" is almost always someone looking up a US area code rather than a country.
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