A definitive answer to this question requires finding the Pacific island (or settlement in Antarctica or North America) closest to the east side of the International Date Line. I can find nothing of sufficient resolution to show it clearly. This map shows that Samoa (as listed there) is a good candidate. http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/dateline.htm
Actually, since the question doesn't specify that anyone has to live there, one could answer that there are an infinite number of places, but most of them involve swimming in the ocean to be there.
Response last updated by CmdrK on Jun 10 2021.
Jan 01 2010, 6:23 PM
Any place in the same time zone as American Samoa also celebrates the New Year at the same time as American Samoa. By that yardstick, American Samoa, The Midway Islands, and several other places are all in the first time zone east of the date line. http://www.worldtimezone.com/utc/utc-1100.html
An alternative answer to this question would be places like China which don't follow the Gregorian calendar and have a different starting date for their New Year (the Chinese New Year isn't until February 14)
The Baker Island and Howland Island are the last places to ring in the New Year. The Iternational date line is not a straight line. Therefore, more than one timezone can be difectly east of it. You must find the most westerly point of the date line and the time zone which lies on its EAST side. This happens to be timezone -12 gmt https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Date_Line
Check out how the first time zone to hit 12 am Jan. 1 is actually more easterly than the last time zone to do it. That is because of the bulge in the date line to the east. This essentially adds two time zones to the 24. Making 26. Because two timezones are created by the date line bulging east to include Samoa Howland and Baker Island are in time zone -12 gmt. The last time zone east of the dateline. The channel islands are east of the Baker and Howland in time zome +14 gmt. 2 points on Earth that are 26 hours apart.not 24. Howland and Baker islands are uninhabited but are the last place on dry earth to ring in the new year. 26 hours after the first..Samoa.
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