Kiribati is among the first countries to welcome the New Year because of its time zones.
Kiribati is an island country spread across a large area of the central Pacific Ocean. Its Line Islands, including Kiritimati, use UTC+14, the world's furthest-forward civil time zone. As a result, inhabitants there reach midnight and the new calendar year before most of the world.
The country moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994, creating a more practical arrangement for administration and communication. Before that change, different parts of Kiribati could be on different sides of the date line, making the country particularly awkward to coordinate.
Kiribati is often described in headlines as the first country to celebrate New Year's Day, but the precise claim depends on what is being compared: the country's eastern islands reach the new date first, while Kiribati also includes islands in other time zones. Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji are also early Pacific celebrants, but their time zones are different.