The Country that First Watch and Enjoy Sunrise

VIVA – Sunrise is the time in the morning when the sun emerges onto the horizon. It turns out, a small island nation in the far east is the first to see the sunrise. Located just west of the International Date Line, Kiribati is the first country in the world to enjoy the sunrise. Its time zone is 14 hours ahead of UTC, the world's furthest time zone.

The country has 33 atolls and low coral islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean spread over more than 3.5 million square kilometers of water. The Republic of Kiribati is made up of three island groups, the Gilbert Islands, Phoenix Island, and Line Island located 30 degrees east of 180 degrees longitude.

Geographically, Line Island is located just south of the island of Hawaii in the United States (US) and should logically be in the same time zone.

However, it's not that simple as the International Dating Line is not straight, but rather a bit winding and over the years has been pushed around for various political and economic reasons.

The Republic of Kiribati crosses the International Dating Line with the eastern and western island groups having a 24-hour time difference before 1995, as reported by the Times of India website, Tuesday, December 13, 2022.

This is seen as an economic disruption because there are only four days per week when both sides have to work together in one day and are the only days when government offices on the opposite side can conduct business.

To put an end to this situation, Teburoro Tito, then the President of Kiribati announced that from January 1, 1995, the International Date Line would henceforth move eastward to encircle his country.

In doing so, the Republic of Kiribati became the first country to welcome the rising rays of the Sun at the start of the third millennium. To celebrate the occasion, they even renamed Caroline Island to Millennium Island in 2000.

The bending of the International Dateline also created the new time zone UTC+14. The new development meant that some places were pushed back by 26 hours or more than a day.

Taking a clue from Kiribati, other island territories such as Tonga moved their standard time forward to UTC+14 and celebrated the New Year at the same time as Kiribati's Line Islands. Although countries are authorized to change their respective time zones, many countries and organizations do not recognize such changes.

The International Dating Line is established by international agreement and there are no treaties associated with the line.

Countries are free to choose whatever time zone they wish to observe. This has led to many date line disputes among the handful of island nations who each claim to be the first to celebrate the New Year.

According to the currently accepted time zone, the first place to welcome the New Year is Kiribati, followed by Tonga, Western Samoa, and Tokelau an hour later.

While at the city level the first is Auckland, the capital of New Zealand. While the last place to celebrate the arrival of the New Year is Baker Island and the uninhabited Howland Island, which are in the United States (US).

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VIVA.co.id

13 November 2024