Kiribati is among the first nations to enter January 1 because part of the country uses UTC+14.
Kiribati is a Pacific island country spread across a huge area of ocean. Its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, observe Line Islands Time, which is UTC+14. That offset places them among the earliest inhabited locations to reach a new calendar date.
The arrangement is connected with a 1994 change to the International Date Line across Kiribati’s territory. Before the change, the country’s island groups could be separated by a date difference of almost a full day. Aligning the calendar date made administration and communication within the country easier.
The claim is sometimes simplified to say that all of Kiribati enters the new year first. That is inaccurate: Kiribati has several time zones, and its different island groups do not reach midnight simultaneously.