Kiribati uses UTC+14 in part of its territory and is among the first countries to enter each New Year.
Kiribati is an island country spread across a wide area of the central Pacific. In 1994, the country adjusted the date line around its eastern islands so that its territory would share the same calendar date. The change placed the Line Islands, including Kiritimati, on the UTC+14 time zone.
Because UTC+14 is the world’s furthest-ahead standard time zone, Kiritimati reaches midnight before almost every other inhabited location. This is why Kiribati is frequently described in news coverage as one of the first countries to welcome the new year.
The wording matters: Kiribati spans multiple time zones, so not every island enters the new year simultaneously. Samoa and Tonga also celebrate very early, but their time-zone arrangements are not identical to Kiribati’s UTC+14 position.