Kiribati celebrates New Year’s Eve in UTC+14, the world’s earliest civil time zone.
Kiribati is an island country spread across a large area of the central Pacific. Its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, use Line Islands Time, which is UTC+14. As a result, those islands are among the first inhabited places to reach a new calendar date and the new year.
The time-zone arrangement is linked to a 1994 change that moved the International Date Line around Kiribati’s eastern islands. Before that adjustment, the country’s islands were divided across different calendar dates, creating practical difficulties for administration and communication.
Kiribati is sometimes described simply as the first country to celebrate New Year, but the more precise statement concerns its UTC+14 Line Islands. Other Pacific nations may reach midnight soon afterward, while Kiribati’s western islands use different time zones.