Kiribati uses the Line Islands' time zone, placing its Line Islands among the earliest inhabited places to welcome the New Year.
Kiribati is an island country spread across a vast area of the central Pacific. In 1995, it moved the International Date Line eastward around its eastern islands so that the country could share the same calendar date. The change affected the Phoenix and Line island groups, including Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island.
Kiritimati uses UTC+14, the world's most advanced civil time zone. As a result, its midnight arrives before midnight in most other inhabited locations. This makes Kiribati a frequent answer in discussions about the first countries to enter a new calendar year, although the exact wording matters: time-zone position is different from claiming that every part of the country celebrates first.
Kiribati's capital, South Tarawa, is in a different island group and does not use the Line Islands' UTC+14 zone, an important detail often missed in simplified trivia.