Artigenda
New Year’s Night
When: anually, the night of January 1.
This article is written from a point of view that Artigenda is based in the Netherlands and the Central European Time Zone (Amsterdam, Western Europe) applies. Therefore, the times mentioned relate to that time zone. This thus also applies to the comparisons made.
New Year’s Night is the period between 00.00 and 06.00 on January 1. The night marks the first day of the new year and follows New Year’s Eve and the start of New Year’s Day (from 06.00).
About New Year's Night
New Year’s Night should not be confused with New Year’s Eve. That night is the last night of the old year, which is the period between roughly six in the evening and midnight/night. Each part of the world celebrates the festivities at a different time. Moreover, how people celebrate the New Year varies from one part of the world to another and even from one country to another. Therefore, it is good to give an overview of when different parts of the world get to the New Year.
Not at once
Because of the different time zones, it is not time for the turn of the year everywhere in the world at the same time. At the time when in other parts of the world it is still just December 31, in another part people are already celebrating the turn of the year. The first to do so is Kiribati and the other Line Islands. They do so at 11 a.m. in the Central European Time Zone (CET) on December 31. New Zealand follows an hour later. At 1 pm, the islands of Wallis, Futuna, the Fiji Islands and Kamchatka (Russia) will follow. Eastern Australia follows at 2pm and half an hour later the south of the country celebrates.
Queensland and other parts of Australia celebrate New Year’s Eve on 31 December at 3 pm CET. So does Vladivostok (Russia). Still, the Australian continent is not done, as half an hour later (3.30 pm) the Northern Territory follows and half an hour later (4 pm) the western part of the continent. Then it is also time for Japan to celebrate, along with South Korea.
At 5 pm, people in China celebrate the Western New Year. They also do so in Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. An hour later, in the early evening (6 pm), it is the turn of western Indonesia and Thailand for the turn of the year.
December 31, 19:30 CET
New Year’s Eve is now a reality in the countries in the Central European Time Zone at 19:30 (7.30 pm) when India and Sri Lanka usher in the new year. Yekaterinburg and Perm start a new year half an hour later (20:00/8 pm). In Afghanistan, people celebrate the turn of the year at 8.30 pm. That is usually the time when in the Netherlands the full-length New Year’s Eve programmes on television begin. On the other side of the world, people celebrate New Year’s Eve at nine o’clock (21:00/9 pm) in Iran, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius and Samara (Russia).
The first two major cities in Europe celebrate the turn of the year at 22:00/10 pm. These are Moscow and St Petersburg. Athens and the rest of Greece follow at 23:00/11 pm, along with Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey and South Africa. This is then also the case in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Finland and Ukraine.
Along with our country, other countries in Europe also celebrate New Year’s Eve. Of course, there is one big exception and that is Great Britain. There, they celebrate the turn of the year an hour later. Along with the Netherlands, Albania, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Norway, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Czech Republic, Sweden and Switzerland also celebrate the turn of the year. Incidentally, Britain is not the only country in Europe where people celebrate New Year’s Eve an hour later. They also do so in Ireland, Iceland and Portugal.
It’s 01.00 on the first day of the new year in the Central European Time Zone (CET Zone) and the countries Ireland, Iceland and Portugal welcome the new year. They do so together with countries such as Morocco and the Caribbean Islands. Another archipelago celebrates the turn of the year an hour later. These are the Azores. An hour later, at 03.00 CET, Argentina and the eastern part of Brazil celebrate the turn of the year.
January 1, 04.00 am CET
The clock ticks. While some people in the CET time zone already decided to go to sleep, it’s time to celebrate in another part of the world. For instance in Chile and Suriname at 04.00 CET. The Canadian east coast (New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia) and the Dominican Republic, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten usher in the new year at 04.30 CET. The wait is then six o’clock in the morning until major Canadian cities such as Ontario, Ottowa and Toronto are allowed to celebrate. They do so together with the province of Quebec and the city of Montreal. The east coast of the United States is then also ready to countdown with cities like Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Miami, New York City, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Washington DC.
When the first people in the Central European Time Zone wake up, people in other parts of the world begin a new year. Some people get up early. Even after New Year’s Night. At 07:00 in the morning, when perhaps even the first early risers are already up in the Netherlands, people celebrate in Winnipeg (Canada), Chicago, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Houston (United States) and Mexico’s capital city (Mexico City). The festivities move up each time. Calgary and Edmonton count down to the new year around 08:00 Dutch time. Along with the US cities of Denver (Colorado), Phoenix (Arizona) and Salt Lake City (Utah), it is the time for the New Year. Canada and the United States are not “done with that yet,” as at 09.00 Canadian cities Vancouver and Victoria (British Columbia) will follow, along with Las Vegas (Nevada), Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego (California) and Seattle (Washington).
January 1, 13:00 (01.00 pm) CET
By now, many people are awake in the Central European Time Zone. For those living in Alaska, it’s time to start celebrating. That is at 10.00 in the morning. The US state of Hawaii will follow at 11.00am. American Samoa, together with the Midway Islands and the New Zealand islands of Niue and Tokelau, kicks off the New Year at 12.00. It is 1pm in the Netherlands when the last two parts of the world celebrate the turn of the year. These are Baker Island and Howland Island.
