Kiribati is among the first countries to enter each New Year because its Line Islands use UTC+14.
Kiribati is an island country in the central Pacific Ocean. Its territory spans several widely separated island groups, and its eastern Line Islands lie on the planet’s most advanced civil time zone, International Date Line East, commonly expressed as UTC+14. That placement puts them among the earliest inhabited places to reach a new calendar date.
The time-zone arrangement became especially notable after Kiribati shifted the date line around its eastern islands in 1994. Before the change, the country’s island groups were separated by a date difference, complicating government, travel, and communication. The adjustment aligned the country more closely on one calendar day.
Kiribati should not be described as reaching midnight everywhere at exactly the same moment: its islands use multiple time zones. Nearby Pacific countries can also be among the first to celebrate, depending on the island and the comparison being made.