New Years Countdown

When does New Year fall?

New Year’s Day is January 1 in the Gregorian calendar — a fixed civil date used by virtually every country worldwide. The countdown event itself is the stroke of midnight at the boundary between December 31 (New Year’s Eve) and January 1 (New Year’s Day), observed locally in each time zone.

Many religious and cultural new years fall on different dates:

• Chinese New Year (Lunar New Year): the second new moon after the winter solstice, late January or February.
• Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year): 1 Tishrei in the Hebrew calendar, usually September or October.
• Islamic New Year: 1 Muharram in the lunar Hijri calendar; shifts approximately 11 days earlier each Gregorian year.
• Nowruz (Persian / Zoroastrian New Year): the spring equinox, March 20 or 21. Observed across Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Kurdish regions, and others.
• Songkran (Thai New Year): April 13–15.
• Diwali: the new year in several Hindu traditions (varies by region).

Upcoming New Year’s Day dates

When January 1 falls on a weekend, most countries that observe it as a statutory holiday substitute the following Monday as the bank holiday. The UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada all use a Monday substitute.

A short history of January 1

The original Roman calendar attributed to Romulus had only ten months and began in March, the start of the agricultural and military season. Numa Pompilius (c. 700 BC) added January and February at the start of the year. Julius Caesar’s calendar reform in 45 BC standardised January 1 as the start of the year and tied it to the inauguration of the Roman consuls, who took office that day.

During the Middle Ages, many Christian European states preferred dates with theological meaning as the legal start of the year:

• March 25 — the Annunciation (used in England until 1752, parts of Italy until the 18th century).
• December 25 — Christmas (Germany and parts of central Europe, medieval period).
• Easter — the variable Resurrection date (France, until the 16th century).

Pope Gregory XIII’s calendar reform in 1582 set January 1 as the start of the year alongside the new Gregorian calendar. Catholic countries adopted it almost immediately; Protestant and Orthodox countries followed over the next three centuries. England and its American colonies switched on September 14, 1752, jumping from December 31, 1751 to January 1, 1752 (skipping March 25 as the year start), and dropping 11 days in the process.

Famous New Year traditions

• Times Square Ball Drop, New York — running annually since 1907 (except 1942–1943 wartime blackout). The current 12-foot, 11,875-pound LED-lit Waterford crystal ball drops down a flagpole atop One Times Square in the final minute of the year. Around 1 million attend in person; around 1 billion watch globally.
• Sydney Harbour fireworks — one of the first major celebrations as the new year sweeps across global time zones. The midnight display launches from the Harbour Bridge and barges, watched by around 1 million people on the foreshore.
• Hogmanay, Scotland — the Scottish New Year is historically larger than Christmas, descending from Norse and Gaelic mid-winter festivals. Customs include “first-footing” (the first visitor of the new year traditionally brings coal, shortbread, salt, black bun, and whisky) and singing “Auld Lang Syne.”
• 12 grapes at midnight, Spain — las doce uvas de la suerte: one grape eaten at each of the 12 chimes of the clock at Puerta del Sol in Madrid, for luck in each of the 12 months of the new year. Originates in 1909, possibly as a marketing campaign by Alicante grape growers with a surplus.
• 108 bell rings in Japan — Joya no Kane: Buddhist temple bells rung 108 times to purify the 108 worldly desires identified in Buddhist tradition.

Sources & references

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — New Year’s Day
• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Gregorian Calendar
• Times Square Alliance — History of the Ball Drop