Kiribati is the Pacific island nation associated with Kiritimati as one of the first places to enter a new calendar year.
Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, belongs to Kiribati's Line Islands and uses UTC+14, the world's most advanced standard time zone. As a result, its local midnight arrives before midnight in most other inhabited places, making it a frequent focus of New Year's Eve discussions.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994, bringing the Line Islands into a calendar arrangement consistent with the rest of the country. That change helped eliminate a situation in which different parts of Kiribati were on different calendar days.
The precise phrase “first place” can depend on whether one means inhabited locations, territories, or the first land to reach midnight. Kiritimati is the specific inhabited island usually cited in popular New Year explanations.