Auckland is the island city famous for fireworks launched from New Zealand's Sky Tower at New Year's Eve midnight.
The Sky Tower is a communications and observation tower in central Auckland. At 328 metres, it is the tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere, and its height makes it a prominent landmark for the city's countdown. Fireworks are launched from the tower as the new year begins, creating a display visible across much of the urban area.
New Zealand reaches January 1 before many other major population centers because it lies close to the International Date Line and uses time zones east of much of the world. Auckland is not the first place on Earth to enter every new year, however; several Pacific islands and territories reach midnight earlier.
Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin are also major New Zealand cities, but the Sky Tower is in Auckland. The tower opened to the public in 1997 and remains both a tourist attraction and a broadcasting structure.