Overview
- Kiritimati in Kiribati reached 2026 first at UTC+14, a status enabled by the nation’s 1994 time-zone shift that unified its islands on one calendar day.
- New Zealand followed at UTC+13, with Auckland’s Sky Tower staging a five‑minute, 3,500‑shot fireworks and light show broadcast nationwide.
- The International Date Line, established in 1884 and routed around political borders, underpins the east‑to‑west progression of celebrations.
- The last places to flip the calendar are the uninhabited U.S. islands of Baker and Howland at UTC−12, while American Samoa and Niue are among the final inhabited territories at UTC−11.
- Samoa greets the year roughly a day earlier than nearby American Samoa after a 2011 realignment to better sync business hours with Australia and New Zealand.