SEE THE FIRST AND LAST COUNTRIES TO RING IN THE NEW YEAR 

Did you know that the first country to enter the New Year is located in the small Pacific island nations of Tonga, while the last occupied territory to celebrate January 1 will be American Samoa?

While some countries are in 2022, the New Year celebrations have begun in others! This is as a result of the International Date Line (IDL). The IDL) is an imaginary line that extends from the North Pole to the South Pole through the center of the Pacific Ocean. This line is not straight. It was made to cross through the ocean so that different countries do not have to go through multiple date zones within the space of a few kilometers.

As explained by LiveScience, when you cross the International Date Line, depending on which direction you are going in, you either gain or lose a day. When moving westward, you will gain a day and while travelling eastward, you will lose a day.

The International Date Line operates on a rational, practical system of universal timekeeping that is based on the movement of Earth around the sun.

The first country – or countries – in the world to mark New Year will actually be the small Pacific island nations of Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati/Christmas Island. They’ll be ringing in the new year at 10am GMT, sparking off a day’s worth of celebrations around the globe.

Next in line will be New Zealand, who’ll say hello to 2023 at around 10.15am GMT.

As it stands the UK will be one of the last countries to celebrate the New Year – and will do so at the same time as Ireland, Iceland, Ghana and Portugal, and an hour later than most of Europe.

However that won’t be the end of New Year celebrations, as North and South America will be the final part of the world to see 2023.

The last place which will welcome the New Year will be Baker Island and Howland Island, two unoccupied US Islands in the Pacific – but the last occupied territory to celebrate January 1 will be American Samoa at 11am GMT tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the countries and their time of ringing in New Year based on the International Standard Time (IST):

▪️New Zealand: 3:45 pm IST

▪️Fiji and a Small region of Russia 5:30 IST

▪️Australia: 6:30 pm IST

▪️Japan, South Korea and North Korea: 8:30 pm IST

▪️China, Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore: 9:30 pm IST

▪️Bangladesh: 11:30 pm IST

▪️Nepal: 11:45 pm IST

▪️Sri Lanka: 12:00 am IST

▪️Pakistan: 12:30 am IST

▪️Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Spain: 4:30 am IST

▪️UK, Ireland, Iceland, Portugal: 5:30 am IST

▪️Thailand, Indonesia: 10:30 pm IST

Sources:

https://www.india.com/news/happy-new-year-2023-celebrations-begin-know-countries-that-will-ring-in-2023-first-and-last-5832415/

https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/31/2023-what-is-the-first-country-to-celebrate-the-new-year-17995442/

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/happy-new-year-2023-know-which-country-will-celebrate-occasion-first/articleshow/96630622.cms