Kiribati is famous for celebrating New Year first because its Line Islands include Kiritimati in UTC+14.
Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, lies in the central Pacific and uses the world’s most advanced civil time zone, UTC+14. When midnight arrives there, much of the rest of the world is still on the previous calendar date. This makes Kiritimati a frequent answer in discussions of the first inhabited places to enter a new year.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line eastward around its islands in 1995. The change placed the Phoenix and Line island groups on the same calendar day as the country’s Gilbert Islands, improving administrative coordination across the widely scattered nation.
The phrase “first country” can be simplified in media coverage. Time-zone comparisons depend on the exact location and whether a place is inhabited, but Kiribati’s UTC+14 territory is the key fact behind its early New Year status.