Days Until New Year

This countdown runs to midnight into 1 January — the moment the year changes in your own time zone. It is exactly the number people mean when they ask how much of the year is left.

New Year is the only global holiday that happens 24 times: each time zone crosses midnight in turn, starting near the International Date Line. Wherever you are, your local countdown above is the one your fireworks follow.

January was not always the start of the year, and the change is recent enough to complicate old documents. Much of medieval Europe began the year on 25 March, and Britain and its colonies did so until 1752 — which is why records from that period sometimes carry double-dated years such as 1750/51. The Gregorian reform of 1582 moved the start to 1 January, but adoption took three and a half centuries to complete, and Russia did not switch until 1918.

The countdown itself is a broadcast invention. The Times Square ball has dropped since 1907, borrowed from the time-signal balls that harbours used to let ships set their chronometers, and the televised midnight count spread the practice worldwide. Sydney and Auckland see the new year hours before Europe; the first inhabited places to reach it are Kiritimati and Samoa, and the last is Baker Island, giving the world a rolling midnight that lasts twenty-six hours.

Resolutions are older than the countdown and no more successful for it — Babylonians made promises to their gods at the new year, and Romans to Janus, the two-faced god of doorways who gives January its name. Modern studies of resolution-keeping consistently find that specific, measurable intentions with a named first action survive far longer than general ones, which is a better use of a countdown than the counting.

New Year's Day — the next five years