Kiribati claims the world’s first New Year sunrise at Millennium Island.
Millennium Island, formerly called Caroline Island, is part of Kiribati’s Line Islands. Its position near the International Date Line, combined with Kiribati’s time-zone arrangement, places it among the first inhabited or visitable places to enter a new calendar day. This is why Kiribati has promoted the island as a location for the first sunrise of the millennium and for early New Year celebrations.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line eastward around its territory in 1994, bringing the Line Islands onto the same calendar day as the rest of the country. The change made the country famous in discussions of where a new day begins.
Claims about the “first sunrise” depend on definitions, including whether one means the first inhabited place, first land, or first location with a visible sunrise. Millennium Island is uninhabited and protected, and access is restricted. The answer is therefore a geographical and time-zone claim, not a description of a huge public party.