Who Has the Biggest New Year's Eve?

China and the rest of its time zone, with its more than 1B people
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 31, 2011 5:19 AM CST
Who Has the Biggest New Year's Eve?
Tourists walk among ice structures lit by colored lights during New Year's Eve celebrations at the Ninth Harbin Ice and Snow World in Harbin, northeastern China, in 2007.   (Getty Images)

If you're looking to celebrate New Year's Eve with a whole bunch of other people, head to China. The time zone that includes China plus Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Timor, and parts of Siberia, Indonesia, and Australia must have at least 1.5 billion people in it, NPR concludes. It wins the most-populous honors.

What about on the opposite end of the spectrum? The time zone with the fewest people celebrating the clock turning over from 11:59 to 12:00 includes, mostly, a bunch of empty ocean. It also includes parts of Greenland and Brazil and some Atlantic islands, but those places have all passed laws making themselves parts of other, more populated, time zones. In this empty time zone, around 24 researchers live during the summer months (which is right about now).

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