Kiribati is widely recognized as the first country to enter the New Year each year.
The reason is its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, which use UTC+14, the world’s most advanced civil time offset. When midnight arrives there, much of the world is still on the previous calendar date. Kiribati is an island republic spread across a very large area of the central Pacific.
The country moved the International Date Line east of its eastern islands in 1995. Before that change, Kiribati’s islands were divided across different calendar dates, making national administration and communication unusually difficult. The adjustment placed the country’s inhabited islands on the same side of the date line.
The claim applies to Kiribati’s Line Islands, not every point in the country at the same instant. “First country” also depends on the convention used: some uninhabited territories and locations share or precede particular offsets, but Kiribati is the standard national answer.