Kiribati is often among the first nations to enter the New Year because part of the country uses UTC+14 time.
Kiribati is an island country spread across a large area of the central Pacific Ocean. Its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, use Line Islands Time, which is UTC+14, the most advanced standard time zone in the world. As a result, midnight arrives there before it does in most other inhabited places.
The country moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994, aligning the calendar date across its territory. Before that change, different parts of Kiribati could be on different sides of the date line, making official timekeeping and administration more difficult.
Kiritimati is also known as Christmas Island, but it is not the same place as Australia’s Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. Being among the first to celebrate does not mean every part of Kiribati reaches midnight simultaneously: the country spans several time zones, including UTC+12, UTC+13, and UTC+14.