Kiribati is often first to enter the New Year because its Line Islands use UTC+14, the world’s most advanced civil time zone.
Kiribati is a Pacific island country spread across a vast area of ocean. Its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, lie far east of the country’s Gilbert Islands. In 1994, Kiribati adjusted the date-line arrangement used by its eastern islands so that the country would share the same calendar date across its territory. This created the UTC+14 time zone there.
As a result, Kiritimati and other Line Islands reach midnight before most inhabited places. News reports often describe Kiritimati as one of the first places to welcome a new year, though the exact ordering of locations depends on official time-zone rules and daylight-saving changes elsewhere.
Kiribati is not a single island: its name refers to a country of 32 atolls and one raised coral island. The country’s unusual geography explains why its New Year timing is so frequently mentioned in global celebrations.