Telephone directory

A telephone directory, also known as a telephone book, telephone address book, phone book, or the white/yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory. Its purpose is to allow the telephone number of a subscriber identified by name and address to be found.

The advent of the Internet and smart phones in the 21st century greatly reduced the need for a paper phone book. Some communities, such as Seattle and San Francisco, sought to ban their unsolicited distribution as wasteful, unwanted and harmful to the environment. Another advantage of Internet phone directories over paper phone directories is that while paper phone directories tend to only contain listings within a certain geographical area, Internet phone directories can be used to find listings worldwide.

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Subscriber names are generally listed in alphabetical order, together with their postal or street address and telephone number. In principle every subscriber in the geographical coverage area is listed, but subscribers may request the exclusion of their number from the directory, often for a fee; their number is then said to be "unlisted" (American English), "ex-directory" (British English), "private" or private number (Australia and New Zealand), or "non-published" (Canada).