What specific island is the first inhabited place on Earth to experience the New Year each year?

randomguy55

Apart from being named after the winterval known as Christmas, Kiritimati has another claim to end-of-year festive season fame: it’s located so close to the International Date Line (and on the right side of it, too) that it’s the first inhabited place on Earth to experience New Year. http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/24/228-merry-kiritimati/ Mar 27 08, 3:56 PM

wahoowa94

Kiribati (specifically Caroline Island or Millenium Island) Based on a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line, Kiribati is now the easternmost country in the world, and was the first country to enter into the year 2000 at Caroline Island, which, not coincidentally, has been renamed Millennium Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati#Geography Mar 27 08, 3:56 PM

author

My source also says Kiritimati, which is a part of the state of Kiribati. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiritimati Millenium Island is uninhabited, so it does not fit to my question. http://www.trussel.com/kir/dateline.htm Caroline Island is the original name of the Millenium Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Island Mar 27 08, 4:50 PM

neelie_447

The Geographical Journal, a scholarly publication of Britain's eminent Royal Geographical Society, asserts that the first permanently inhabited place on Earth struck by New Year's dawn will be Hakepa Hill on New Zealand's Pitt Island. http://www.worldtimezone.com/newspaper-heraldtribune.html Mar 27 08, 5:05 PM

author

The story about Pitt Island is interesting. Maybe this island used to be the first inhabited place to experience the New year before Kiribati changed its date line in 1995? I just ask, I don't know. Here is a quote, though: The central Pacific Republic of Kiribati introduced a change of date for its eastern half, on January 1, 1995, from time zones −11 and −10 to +13 and +14. Before this, the country was divided by the date line. This meant that the date line in effect moved eastwards to go around this country. As a British colony, Kiribati was centered in the Gilbert Islands, just west of the old date line. Upon independence in 1979, the new republic acquired the Phoenix and Line Islands from the United States and the country found itself straddling the date line. Government offices on opposite sides of the line could only communicate on the four days of the week when both sides experienced weekdays simultaneously. A consequence of this time zone revision was that Kiribati, by virtue of its easternmost possession, uninhabited Caroline Atoll at 150°25′ west, started the year 2000 on its territory before any other country on earth, a feature which the Kiribati government capitalized upon as a potential tourist draw. But Ariel and Berger comment that the international community have not taken this date line adjustment seriously, noting that most world atlases still ignore this Kiribati dateline shift and continue to represent the International Date as a straight line in the Kiribati area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Dateline Just some nitpicking here: The US actually kept three of the Line Islands, while Kiribati got the rest of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_islands Mar 27 08, 6:31 PM

queproblema

Somewhere in the archives rests a question similar to this one. Easterliness and altitude were brought up as factors having to do with experiencing the New Year. The hill on Pitt Island would see the sun rise first because of its altitude, but a heavy cloud cover would obfuscate the first rays of sunlight. Technically the New Year starts in the middle of the night, so my vote goes with the easternmost time zone regardless of altitude. It just depends on what "experience the New Year" means. Mar 27 08, 7:16 PM