2023 is coming to an end, and we are about to usher in 2024.
Which country will be the first to usher in 2024? Is the question equivalent to "which country will usher in the sunrise first"?
The topic of "ushering in the new year at the earliest" seems simple, but it is actually "brain-burning". This brings us to the time zone and the "International Date Line".
For a long time, many countries have recognized this title as their own. Even today, countries such as Kiribati, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand, which are close to the International Date Line, still hold their own opinions.
The Earth rotates from west to east every day, and at dawn, noon, evening, and midnight, it cycles around the world from east to west. Where should a new day begin on earth? This question has caused many misunderstandings and troubles.
Long after Magellan's successful circumnavigation of the globe, the surviving crew found that the logbook was one day less than the date on land. This incident caused a huge sensation at the time, and some people even suspected that the day was "eaten" by the sun. Later, it became clear that since the Earth rotated from west to east, the fleet would have lost one day after sailing from east to west and one more day if it had traveled from east to west. For this reason, it was decided to advance the date by one day and go back one day when sailing westward. But this approach is not a cure for the symptoms and still causes great confusion in the date.
It was not until 1884 that the Washington International Longitude Conference overcame this confusion. The Longitude Conference stipulates that the world is divided into 24 time zones, with 12 time zones in the east and west, and the 12th zone in the east and west is bounded by 180 degrees east and west longitude. The International Council of Longitude established an "international date line" that would change the date whenever it was crossed. However, the International Date Line is an imaginary dividing line. In order to avoid the confusion of "one country, two days", the demarcation line does not completely coincide with the 180th parallel line from the date of demarcation, and is not a straight line. The eastern end of Russian Siberia deviates eastward in order to adopt the Russian date, while the Aleutian Islands in the United States deviates westward in order to adopt the American date.
It is precisely because the international date line is not straight, so there is a debate about who will usher in the new day first in each country.
Everywhere you look, the sun rises in the east. Therefore, the closer a country is to the east, the sooner the sunrise will begin. In this way, New Zealand and Fiji, which are closest to the 180th parallel, have rightly become the first countries on earth to usher in the dawn of the new year using the time of the 12th East Zone.
Do you think this is the case? No, in fact, there are more powerful operations in order to "welcome the new day at the earliest" and "welcome the new year at the earliest".
The line of change is not static, and the neighboring countries hold the "Moonlight Treasure Box" in their hands and can adjust the time by themselves. Kiribati, which became independent in 1979, has a land area of only 811 square kilometers, but it stretches for nearly 4,000 kilometers from east to west. The Lane Islands in West 10 and the Phoenix Islands in West 11 are 22-23 hours slower than Tarawa, the capital in East 12. On 31 December 1994, the two islands were converted to East 14 and East 13 respectively. In this way, the Lien Islands became the only place in the world to use the East 14 Zone, and Kiribati was indisputably the "first to usher in the dawn".
On December 31, 1994, Kiribati changed the Lane Islands, located in the West 10th Zone, to the East 14th Zone (six hours earlier than Beijing), and it has firmly established itself as the world's "earliest dawn (New Year)" throne. The photo shows the sunrise at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas Island in the East 14th Arrondissement. Photo by Chen Xiaowei
Tonga's changes have the whole country "fast-forwarding" for a whole day. On 30 December 1999, Tonga, a small island nation east of the Line of Change, skipped 31 December and went straight into the New Year in order to raise its international profile and avoid losing two working days a week when it could trade with Australia and New Zealand. In this way, December 31, 1999 "disappeared from the world" in Tonga's history.
Tonga's neighbour, Samoa, did the same, changing the country from West 11 to East 13 on 29 December 2011, skipping 30 December and moving into 31 December. In American Samoa, which is only 200 kilometres to the east, the West 11 is still used. Many Samoans travel to American Samoa to experience a 24-hour "journey through time" "from today to yesterday".
In 1997, Kiribati converted Caroline Island, an uninhabited island in East 14 District, into "Millennium Island" to attract international tourists. Pictured is the Millennium Island monument at a hotel on Christmas Island. Photo by Chen Xiaowei
The Southern Hemisphere is the opposite of the Northern Hemisphere season, and daylight saving time is generally used from September to April. Since the New Year falls during this time, countries in the East 13 and with daylight saving time can be "on an equal footing" with Kiribati, which has the East 14 Zone, and the first light of the new year will be ushered in at the earliest. From 2010 to 2021, Samoa adopted daylight saving time, during which the whole country "fast-forwarded" from the East 13 to the East 14. Tonga adopted daylight saving time twice in 1992-2002 and 2016-2017, so it can also share the "oldest" status with Kiribati during these two periods.
Before Kiribati adjusted its time zone in 1994, the city of Gisbourg, New Zealand, which is closest to 180 degrees east longitude, adopted 13 East zone time for a few months during daylight saving time, making it the first city in the world to celebrate the New Year. New Zealand was not convinced by the change in Kiribati's time, and the pre-1994 marking method was still used when the "Millennium Commemorative Stamp" was issued on 1 January 2000.
No matter how you divide the time zones, the Antarctic continent, which spans all longitudes, always has the earliest time of the day. But the Antarctic is not a country, has no indigenous people, and like the Arctic, has a polar night for half the year every year, it is usually not a candidate for the "Battle of the Dawn".
In short, in the face of the debate of which country in the world will be the first to usher in the New Year, Kiribati, the only South Pacific island nation with the East 14 Zone, is the most likely to win. (People's Daily International WeChat Official Account)