Kiritimati is part of the Line Islands, among the first inhabited places to enter each New Year.
The Line Islands are a chain in the central Pacific Ocean belonging mainly to Kiribati. Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is the largest coral atoll in the world by land area. It uses UTC+14, the world's most advanced civil time zone, so its residents reach January 1 before most populated areas.
The time-zone arrangement is the reason the Line Islands appear in New Year's geography. In 1995, Kiribati moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands so the country could observe the same calendar date across its territory. This change placed the Line Islands on the earliest side of the date transition.
“First” claims need careful wording. The exact first inhabited location can depend on which island, settlement, and time-zone convention is being compared. Kiritimati is commonly cited because it is inhabited and uses UTC+14, but it is not the first place on Earth in any universal astronomical sense.