Kiribati contains Kiritimati, an island often among the first inhabited places to enter the new year.
Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, uses Coordinated Universal Time plus 14 hours. That places it on the eastern side of the International Date Line and gives it one of the earliest civil calendar dates on Earth.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994 so the country could share the same calendar day across its territory. The change made Kiritimati especially prominent in global New Year's coverage.
Being among the first places to celebrate does not mean Kiritimati is the first point on Earth to see sunrise or that every nearby island shares its time zone. Time-zone boundaries are legal and practical choices, and the order of celebrations depends on the date-line arrangement and daylight-saving rules elsewhere.