New Year’s Eve is celebrated everywhere across the world but, as everyone already knows, it takes turns for everyone to enter the new year.
The order of which countries start the New Year’s Eve countdown follows the International Date Line, making the central Pacific nation of Kiribati the first to greet the first day every year.
This, however, only began in 1995 when the country made an adjustment to ensure the entire Kiribati territory could celebrate New Year’s Eve the same day together. Before such adjustment, the county was split by the International Date Line.
New Zealand’s Chatham Islands celebrate New Year’s Eve about 15 minutes after Kiribati while mainland New Zealand enters the new year about 45 minutes later.
Fiji is next in line to join the countdown, two hours after Kiribati, after which Australia celebrates the new year in several time zones.
Japan and South Korea are among those celebrating the new year five hours after Kiribati, while the Philippines, Singapore and the entire China – including Macau and Hong Kong – enters the new year one hour after Japan and South Korea.
Indonesia and Thailand are among those doing the countdown one hour later, followed by Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and so on.
Most European countries enter the new year about 13 to – like Portugal – 14 hours after Kiribati.
Meanwhile, Greenland celebrates the new year 16 hours after Kiribati, while Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay do their New Year’s Eve countdowns an hour later. And for the next three hours, Venezuela, Canada, the US East Coast and Mexico are among those celebrating the new year.
The US West Coast enters the new year about 22 hours after Kiribati, while the US island state of Hawaii celebrates New Year’s Eve exactly a day after Kiribati.
This means it is possible for someone to celebrate New Year’s Eve twice. For instance, passengers on Cathay Pacific flight CX880 not only went through two New Year’s countdowns, they even travelled back in time – so it seemed.
Flight CX880 departed Hong Kong about 25 minutes after midnight on 1 January 2025 and landed in Los Angeles about three hours before midnight on 31 December 2024. Well, the more (countdowns) the merrier. Have a blessed 2025 to all our readers. (Gilbert Humphrey)
Photo: Aleksandr Popov
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