Which country is the first to receive Christmas?

According to tradition, Santa Claus, or Santa Claus in the Anglo-Saxon world, begins his journey on a sleigh pulled by deer coming from Lapland, Finland, near the North Pole. From there he will bring toys and other gifts to children who have behaved well.

At midnight onwards December 24thadults will raise their glasses to wish a Merry Christmas and, especially Christians, to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, which took place in a humble manger in the Holy Land.

But the arrival of Santa Claus and the toasts, preceded by a hearty dinner in most countries, do not happen at the same time throughout the world. It advances progressively from west to east as indicated by the different time zones.

The celebration of Christmas and New Year a week later depend on the International date line (International Date Line, or IDL) which runs along the 180th meridian and makes some curves to include countries or territories that would otherwise have a time difference of up to 23 hours.

Which country is the first to receive Christmas?

The exact place where it should celebrate Christmas first This is Caroline Island, or Millennium Island, which is part of the island state of Kiribati, an archipelago spread across much of the Pacific Ocean.

This atoll, measuring 3.76 km2 and with a maximum height of 6 m, contains a lagoon 9.7 km long and 1.6 km wide. Discovered in 1795 by Captain William Broughton, it belonged to the United Kingdom since 1868 and is currently part of Kiribati, which gained independence in 1979.

Caroline Island was renamed Millennium Island in 1999 because from there, according to time conventions, the year 2000 began. However, the atoll is unemployed and, therefore, to celebrate Christmas or New Year for the first time in the world you have to travel a little further west.

Santa Claus will find more residents, and even tourists, on Christmas Island, or Kiritimatiso called by its discoverer, the British navigator James Cook, who arrived there on 24 December 1777.

Part of Kiribati, Kiritimati is a 388 km2 coral atoll, making up almost 70% of the country’s land area. It has an airport, some accommodation, beautiful beaches and several areas declared nature reserves.

The situation is different in the celebrations of New Year’s. Since 2011, Kiritimati’s 6,500 residents have been sharing with their neighbors Samoa the worldwide privilege of being the first to raise our glasses for the toast.

The fact is that, for commercial reasons – due to the time zones which were almost a day different from China, Australia and New Zealand – the government of that archipelago also located in Polynesia decided eliminate December 30th from your calendar. From the 29th we move “without pause” to the 31st. Thus, Samoa went from the last country to receive the Year to one of the first.