Kiribati is among the first countries to welcome each New Year because part of it uses the UTC+14 time zone.
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. That offset places the islands among the earliest inhabited places on Earth to reach midnight on a new calendar date.
The distinction is linked to the International Date Line, the irregular boundary where the calendar date changes. In 1994, Kiribati moved the date-line arrangement affecting its eastern islands so that the country's territory would share the same calendar day. This change helped align administration and communications across its widely scattered islands.
Kiritimati is often described in news coverage as one of the first inhabited places to celebrate New Year. Kiribati is the country, while Kiritimati is an island within it, so the two names should not be treated as interchangeable answers.