UTC+14 is the time zone used by the first permanently inhabited places to enter a new calendar year.
The Line Islands of Kiribati, including Kiritimati, observe UTC+14, the earliest civil time zone on Earth. When midnight arrives there, the date is already one day ahead of locations using Coordinated Universal Time. This makes Kiritimati a frequent answer to questions about the first inhabited island or territory to celebrate New Year's Day.
Kiribati shifted the International Date Line around its eastern islands in 1994, bringing the whole country onto the same calendar date. The change helped align the Line Islands with the rest of Kiribati for government and communication purposes. A common mistake is to name a country without specifying its island group or to cite UTC+12, which is not the earliest offset. “First” depends on civil time zones and permanent habitation, not on the instant of sunrise or the first fireworks broadcast.