Caroline Island was renamed Millennium Island after being among the first places to enter the year 2000.
Caroline Island is a remote atoll in the central Pacific Ocean and part of Kiribati. In 1994, Kiribati shifted the date line across its eastern island groups so that the country would share one calendar date. That change helped make its eastern islands some of the first inhabited places to experience a new day.
The atoll was renamed Millennium Island in 1994 in anticipation of the millennium celebrations. Its location near the International Date Line made it a powerful symbol in global media coverage of the transition from 1999 to 2000.
The island is uninhabited and should not be confused with Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, which is another Kiribati island and the country’s most populous atoll. “First” claims depend on whether one means the first territory, first inhabited location, or first major city, so the wording “among the first places” is more precise.