Kiritimati uses the UTC+14 offset, making it one of the first inhabited places to enter the New Year.
Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is part of Kiribati in the central Pacific Ocean. Its time zone is Line Islands Time, which is 14 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. Because the International Date Line bends around Kiribati's eastern islands, the country moved its official date line alignment in 1995.
That change placed the Line Islands on the calendar's earliest civil date. As a result, Kiritimati reaches January 1 before most populated regions, making it a regular focus of global New Year's coverage.
Being first by the clock does not mean Kiritimati is the first place on Earth in every physical sense; time zones are legal and political arrangements. Samoa and other Pacific islands have also changed their date-line relationships, so lists of “first” locations should identify the time-zone rule being used.