Kiritimati is the Pacific island often described as one of the first inhabited places to welcome the New Year. It is part of Kiribati’s Line Islands and lies in the UTC+14 time zone, the world’s furthest-forward civil time zone.
The island’s name is the Gilbertese form of “Christmas,” reflecting the date on which Captain James Cook visited it in 1777. Kiritimati is also widely known as Christmas Island, though it is not the Australian Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. That same-name mix-up is a frequent source of confusion.
The date-line story is more complicated than simply naming the first place on Earth. The International Date Line is an irregular political boundary, and some uninhabited locations enter a new calendar date before inhabited settlements. Kiritimati’s importance comes from its inhabited communities and its position in Kiribati’s UTC+14 zone, not from being the planet’s geographic easternmost point.