Kiribati moved across the International Date Line in 1994 to align its islands and enter the New Year before many neighboring countries.
Kiribati is a Pacific island nation whose territory is spread across a vast area of ocean. Before the change, the country's eastern islands were separated from its western islands by a date difference, making national administration and communication unusually difficult.
The government shifted the date-line arrangement around the Line Islands in 1994. As a result, Kiritimati, also known as Christmas Island, became one of the first inhabited places to reach January 1 each year. The change did not move the geographic International Date Line itself; it altered the country's time-zone arrangement.
Kiribati is often described as the first country to welcome the New Year, but the exact order depends on time-zone rules and which inhabited locations are being compared. Samoa later made its own date-line change in 2011.