Phronesis
No. 073Fact1995Countries ·Geography ·Space

Kiribati moved the International Date Line

Until 1995 Kiribati was split by the date line, so different parts of the country were on different days. So it moved the line.

2 min read

Kiribati (pronounced “KIRR-i-bass”) is a nation of 33 coral atolls and islands scattered across a stretch of the Pacific wider than the continental United States. It sits on the equator and across the 180th meridian, the line the date line roughly follows.

A country on two different days

Before 1995 the International Date Line ran through Kiribati. The capital on Tarawa in the west and the Line Islands in the east were a full day apart. When it was Monday in one part of the country it was Sunday in the other, which left only four shared working days a week for government offices and businesses.

Moving the line

There is no treaty that fixes the date line. Each country chooses its own time zone. So in 1995 Kiribati shifted its eastern islands across, putting the whole country on the same side. The date line now makes a large eastward bulge around Kiribati.

The Line Islands ended up on UTC+14, the earliest time zone on Earth. It’s 14 hours ahead of London, and 26 hours ahead of the uninhabited US Baker Island, also in the central Pacific. Kiribati promoted itself as the first country to see the dawn of the year 2000.

The next problem

Most of Kiribati is only a few metres above sea level. In 2014 the government bought about 20 km² of land on Vanua Levu in Fiji, calling it “an absolute necessity” in case rising seas make parts of the country unlivable.

See it move

A simplified animation: Earth seen from above the North Pole. Each colour is a calendar day; a new day starts at midnight, and the date jumps at the date line (red).

Animation: ArnaudfCC BY-SA 3.0Wikimedia Commons

Bring it up

“Kiribati moved the International Date Line in 1995, partly so it could be first to see the year 2000.”

Follow the thread

  1. Same patternChina spans five time zones but uses one Time zones are political decisions, not natural facts.
  2. RelatedFrance has more time zones than any other country Another country where time zones are shaped by politics and scattered islands.
  3. RelatedPoint Nemo, where spacecraft go to die The remote central Pacific, where nations are mostly ocean.

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