Kiribati is widely associated with being among the first inhabited places to welcome each New Year because of its time zone.
Kiribati is a Pacific island country spread across a large area of ocean. In 1995, it moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands, bringing the Line Islands, including Kiritimati, onto the same calendar day as the rest of the country. This change helped create the popular description of Kiritimati as one of the first inhabited places to enter a new year.
Kiritimati is also known as Christmas Island, but it is not the Australian Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. The name can therefore cause confusion in New Year's coverage.
The exact order of midnight celebrations depends on time zones and daylight-saving rules elsewhere. For that reason, “first” claims are often simplified in popular accounts, but Kiribati's UTC+14 location makes it a prominent answer in global New Year's discussions.