Kiribati is the island nation famous for New Year's Eve celebrations at Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island.
Kiritimati lies in Kiribati's Line Islands and uses UTC+14, the world's furthest-forward civil time zone. Because of that time-zone position, the island is among the first inhabited places to reach a new calendar date. News reports often describe it as one of the first places to welcome the new year.
Kiritimati is the world's largest coral atoll by land area and is part of the Republic of Kiribati, a Pacific island country spread across several island groups. Its name comes from the Gilbertese pronunciation of “Christmas.”
The phrase “first in the world” can be oversimplified because the exact order depends on inhabited locations, time zones and the International Date Line. Kiritimati's UTC+14 position is the concrete reason it appears so prominently in New Year's coverage.