Kiribati’s Line Islands are among the first inhabited places to enter each new year.
The reason is time zones. Kiribati includes the Line Islands, which use UTC+14, the world’s most advanced civil time zone. Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is the best-known inhabited island in that zone and is frequently described as one of the first populated places to celebrate New Year’s Day.
Kiribati moved the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994. Before that change, the country’s island groups were separated by different calendar dates, making it difficult for the nation to conduct business and share a common working week. The adjustment placed the Line Islands on the same side of the date line as the rest of Kiribati.
A common oversimplification says that Kiribati is always the first place on Earth to celebrate. The exact order depends on which inhabited locations are being compared and on local time-zone rules, but the Line Islands are unquestionably among the earliest.