Not yet New Year: It's still 2023 in these countries, territories

UAE's time zone is UTC+4; global time zones range from 12 hours before the UTC to 14 hours after

Supreeta Balasubramanian

Published: Mon 1 Jan 2024, 10:49 AM

Last updated: Mon 1 Jan 2024, 11:44 AM

While UAE residents have already started 2024, having celebrated the clock striking midnight last night, some parts of the world are still gearing up to ring in the New Year.

Time zones across the world range from 12 hours before the UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), to 14 hours after.

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Here are some cities, countries, and territories where people are still waiting to reach 2024:

1. USA

While parts of the US have already celebrated the arrival of 2024, most are in countdown mode still! The large country has seven time zones, two of which have crossed the line and joined us in the New Year - the Eastern Standard Time zone (New York, Washington DC), and the Central Standard Time zone (Chicago).

Photo: AFP

People in the states west of these, such as Colorado, Nevada, California, Hawaii have some time to go still.

Here are some cities that are in 2023 at the time this article is published: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Juneau, Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Salt Lake City.

Phoenix will ring in the New Year at 11am UAE time.

Cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles will reach midnight at 12pm UAE time.

Honolulu, on the Pacific island state of Hawaii, will celebrate the New Year at 4pm UAE time.

United States Minor Outlying Islands such as Baker Island, off the coast of Hawaii, are actually almost 6 hours away from 2024. These islands are in the westernmost time zone, UTC-12. They will celebrate the New Year at 4pm UAE time.

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2. Canada

Canada also has multiple time zones, and the cities in the west such as Vancouver (to reach midnight at 12pm UAE time), Edmonton and Calgary (to reach midnight at 11am UAE time) are in 2023 still. The North American country actually has one more time zone than the US, bringing the total to eight.

3. Mexico

Mexico's time zones that have not reached midnight yet include Mountain Standard Time (city: Hermosillo, to reach midnight at 11am UAE time), and Pacific Standard Time (city: Tijuana - the same time zone as California in US; reaching midnight at 12pm UAE time).

Photo: AFP

There are a total of four time zones in the country.

Who celebrated before the UAE?

Meanwhile, countries to the east of the UAE were ahead on the New Year celebrations. Kiribati, an island nation, was the first to leave behind 2023. The country observes three time zones, UTC+12 to UTC+14. That means at 2pm yesterday, one part of the country was the first in the world to reach 2024, while the others were still in 2023.

Other countries that celebrated the New Year include Australia (5pm UAE time), Japan and South Korea (7pm UAE time), Philippines and China (8pm UAE time), Indonesia and Thailand (9pm UAE time), India and Sri Lanka (10.30pm UAE time), and Pakistan (11pm UAE time)

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