 | The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with U.S. and Canada and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(November 2025) |
Blue pages are a telephone directory listing of American and Canadian state agencies, government agencies, federal government and other official entities, along with specific offices, departments, or bureaus located therein.
Canadian yellow-page listings indicated "Government Of Canada-See Government Listings In The Blue Pages"; in markets where the local telephone directory was a single volume, the blue pages and community information normally appeared after the alphabetical white-page listings but before the yellow pages advertising.[ citation needed ] The blue page listings included both provincial and federal entities. [1] The Canadian government ceased publishing phone numbers for each federal department in 2015, although individual provinces and municipalities continued to give local information. [2]
In the United States, the blue pages included state, federal, and local offices, [3] including service districts such as school districts, port authorities, public utility providers, parks districts, and fire districts.[ citation needed ] Starting in 1997, the blue pages also provided information about government services, in addition to officials' names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other contact information. [4] They were published either separately from the rest of the phone book, or consolidated into one volume, depending on the phone company and year. [5] However, some phone books misplaced government-run businesses like Amtrak outside of the Blue pages section. [6] The color blue is likely derived from so-called government blue books, official publications printed by a government (such as that of a state) describing its organization, and providing a list of contact information. (The blue pages published in a printed telephone directory is usually quite abridged, compared to official blue books).[ citation needed ]
The name "blue pages" has been used for various specialised directories by private-sector entities such as the internal IBM Staff directory. [7]
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