The Country that First Watch and Enjoy Sunrise
- U-Report
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.
Republik Kiribati, negara kepulauan di samudera Pasifik.
- wikipedia.org
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.
