While many across the globe are gearing up for their New Year’s Eve festivities, inhabitants of Kiribati, situated in the Pacific Ocean, were among the first to usher in the year 2024.
Gatekeepers News reports that countries in the Pacific Ocean are among the first to see the new year as they are the dateline’s most easterly point and the first to see the sun each morning.
At their midnight, which corresponds to 10 am GMT, the island nation marked the beginning of the global New Year celebrations.
Also called “Christmas Island”, Kiritimati Island is 13 hours ahead of Abuja Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
Tonga and Samoa quickly followed suit, ringing in the New Year at 11 am GMT.
Australians and New Zealanders are preparing for their celebrations to align with the turn of the year at 11 am GMT. Australia, with its renowned Sydney Harbor Bridge fireworks display, will capture global attention as it ushers in 2024 two hours later.
Australia is split across a range of time zones and other cities will see the 2024 at slightly different times.
The United States, across its various time zones, will see New York and states on Eastern Time marking midnight at 5 am GMT on January 1 in the UK.
For countries on central time the new year will come one hour later – and then two hours after that countries on western US time will also be celebrating.
Hawaii is the exception which is 10 hours behind GMT.
As celebrations cascade across different time zones, the last country to bid farewell to 2023 will be American Samoa, 11 hours behind GMT and a full 25 hours after Kiribati commenced the global New Year festivities.
The last place to join the new year train will be Baker Island, 650 miles (1,046.074 kilometres) from Kiribati. However, it is about 26 hours behind due to time zones quirk.
