Kiritimati is the inhabited atoll in Kiribati that is among the first places to welcome each New Year.
Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, lies in the central Pacific and is part of the Line Islands of Kiribati. Its location near the International Date Line places it in UTC+14, the world's most advanced civil time zone. As a result, midnight arrives there before it does in most other inhabited places.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line eastward around its territory in 1994, allowing the country's islands to share the same calendar day. This change helped make the eastern Line Islands famous for entering a new day and a new year early.
Kiritimati is not the same as Australia's Christmas Island, which lies in the Indian Ocean. The Kiribati island is known for its lagoons, seabird populations, and large land area relative to other coral atolls. “First” claims depend on the definition used, but Kiritimati is a standard answer for an inhabited location in the earliest time zone.