Hyderabad: As people across the world celebrate the new year, the Republic of Kiribati, an island nation in the Micronesia sub-region of Oceania in the central Pacific Ocean, was the first country to welcome 2024 as it is ahead of all countries in the world as far as the time zones are concerned.
At 3:30 pm Indian Standard Time on Sunday, Kiribati rang in the New Year much ahead of other nations in the world. Kiribati, with a population of over 1.2 lakh, straddles the equator and the International Date Line goes around these islands.
As the world transitioned from 2023 to 2024, Kiribati stepped into the new year several hours ahead of everyone. It is ironic that the island nation gets most of the eyeballs only around the New Year as curiosity makes people search for places which are far ahead in time.
While the island nation takes the lead, the last country to celebrate New Year is American Samoa, a country with just 45,000 population which lies over 2,600 km northeast of New Zealand and 3,500 km southwest of Hawaii. After Samoa, the New Year celebrations travels westward with Fiji, Australia, Japan and South Korea welcoming 2024 next. With 38 different local times in use, it takes 26 hours for the New Year to encompass all time zones.
Here is the order how countries enter 2024:
3:30 pm IST: Kiribati
4:30 pm IST : New Zealand
5:30 pm IST: Fiji, small region of Russia
6:30 pm IST: Much of Australia
8:30 pm IST: Japan, South Korea
9.30 pm IST: China, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines
10.30 pm IST Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia – December 31, 5:00 pm GMT
India, Sri Lanka (5 hours 30 minutes ahead of GMT)
1.30 am IST (Jan 1, 2024): UAE, Oman, Azerbaijan
3.30 am IST: Greece, South Africa, Cyprus, Egypt, Namibia
4.30 am IST: Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Morocco, Congo, Malta
5.30 am IST: UK, Ireland, Portugal
8.30 am IST: Brazil, Argentina, Chile
9.30 am IST: Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Venezuela, US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands
10.30 am IST: US East Coast (New York, Washington DC, etc), Peru, Cuba, Bahamas
11.30 am IST: Mexico, parts of Canada and the US
1.30 pm IST: US West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc)
3.30 pm IST: Hawaii, French Polynesia
4.30 pm IST: Samoa
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