These rarest of time zones were established by Kiribati, on an entirely unilateral basis, on 31 December 1994, for the purpose of removing certain absurdities from the daily lives of its citizens. That rectangle represents two time zones, GMT+14 and GMT+13 (note: I’m using GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time here, which may be to do with my London childhood but it’s also increasingly referred to by the initials UTC or Universal Time, Coordinated). This is the International Date Line: trace it to the point where it’s interrupted from its simple trajectory and cuts out dramatically to the right, forming the shape of a kind of sideways ‘T’. To find Kiribati, first find a bold north-south line cutting through the Pacific Ocean.
![gmt time zone gmt time zone](https://www.worldtimezone.com/images/standard-time-zone-chart-of-world-2021-03.gif)
Ever in pursuit of a challenge though, let’s not let that stop us… Kiribati is also one of the few places in the world to straddle all four hemispheres, which means that, because its habitable land consists of just thirty-three delicate atolls ( ring-shaped coral reef islands – could it get more romantic?) it can be rather hard to locate on a map. Fittingly, its flag depicts a sun rising perpetually above the waves.
![gmt time zone gmt time zone](https://printable-us-map.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/printable-us-time-zone-map-with-states-valid-10-inspirational-printable-map-of-the-united-states-time-zones.png)
You can think of Kiribati as the eternal land of tomorrow: if it’s Sunday where you are, it’s probably Monday in Kiribati. Kiribati – pronounced Kiribas – is the only nation on Earth to permanently trespass into GMT+14: the earliest time zone in the world.
![gmt time zone gmt time zone](https://icelandmag.is/sites/default/files/styles/main_story/public/thumbnails/image/timezone.jpg)
Every day has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is always the same: it’s the island republic of Kiribati, a vast constellation of atolls dispersed across 1.4 million square miles of Pacific Ocean.