In the North American Numbering Plan for telephone service, area code 828 is the telephone area code for most of the western third of the U.S. state of North Carolina. It includes the Blue Ridge Mountains, as well as most of the Foothills. The largest city in the 828 territory is Asheville. The city of Hickory is often grouped with the Charlotte metropolitan area, but uses 828 rather than Charlotte's 704 and 980. Area code 828 was split from the 704 numbering plan area on 18 May 1998 to provide relief from numbering plan exhaustion brought about by the popularity of pagers and cell phones.