The Largest Community in Each Time Zone on New Year’s Day

The first to celebrate New Year’s live on Kiritimati in Kiribati. Only 3,547 people there in that time zone. It spreads west from there, reaching all sorts of places until the last spots catch up.

This map labels the biggest city or town in each zone, with populations that go from huge urban areas to spots with hardly anyone.

You see big differences here. Jakarta at +7 has 41.9 million, the most in any single zone based on current data. But places like Baker Island and Howland Island at -12 have zero people celebrating, while the smallest with residents is Eucla at +8:45, with 37.

UTC Offset	Community	Country	Population
+14	Tabwakea (Kiritimati)	Kiribati	3,547
+13:45	Waitangi (Chatham Islands)	New Zealand	177
+13	Auckland	New Zealand	1.7 million
+12	Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky	Russia	164,900
+11	Sydney	Australia	5.2 million
+10:30	Adelaide	Australia	1.4 million
+10	Brisbane	Australia	2.6 million
+9:30	Darwin	Australia	147,255
+9	Tokyo	Japan	33.4 million
+8:45	Eucla	Australia	37
+8	Shanghai	China	29.6 million
+7	Jakarta	Indonesia	41.9 million
+6:30	Yangon	Myanmar	7.3 million
+6	Dhaka	Bangladesh	36.6 million
+5:45	Kathmandu	Nepal	2.9 million
+5:30	Delhi	India	30.2 million
+5	Karachi	Pakistan	20.4 million
+4:30	Kabul	Afghanistan	4.3 million
+4	Dubai	United Arab Emirates	3.5 million
+3:30	Tehran	Iran	15.8 million
+3	Moscow	Russia	21.5 million
+2	Cairo	Egypt	25.6 million
+1	Lagos	Nigeria	24.7 million (metro)
+0	London	United Kingdom	15.1 million
-1	Praia	Cabo Verde	561,901
-2	Fernando de Noronha	Brazil	3,101
-3	São Paulo	Brazil	22.6 million
-3:30	St. John’s	Canada	205,955
-4	Caracas	Venezuela	5.3 million
-5	New York City	United States	20.1 million
-6	Mexico City	Mexico	22.5 million
-7	Phoenix	United States	4.8 million
-8	Los Angeles	United States	13.2 million
-9	Anchorage	United States	398,328
-9:30	Nuku Hiva	French Polynesia	3,120
-10	Honolulu	United States	1 million
-11	Pago Pago	American Samoa	3,656
-12	Baker Island & Howland Island	United States	0

If time zones interest you, check my post on how time zones started or borders that split oddly.