New Year's Day

Name: New Year's Day in International
Start: 20250101T00:00:00+00:00
End: 20250102T00:00:00+00:00
Location: PLACE

Category: Culture

Culture

New Year's Day around the world in 2025 — Image by Džoko Stach , from Pixabay. CC0

About New Year's Day

How long until New Year's Day?
New Year's Day .
Dates of New Year's Day
2026 InternationalJan 1 International Thu, Jan 1Observances Holiday 2025 InternationalJan 1 International Wed, Jan 1Observances Holiday 2024 InternationalJan 1 International Mon, Jan 1Observances Holiday 2023 InternationalJan 1 International Sun, Jan 1Observances Holiday 2022 InternationalJan 1 International Sat, Jan 1Observances Holiday
Summary
The first day of the year is a truly global holiday, celebrated by 90% of the world's population.

When is New Year's Day?

New Year's Day is the first day of the year, in the Gregorian calendar, and falls exactly one week after the Christmas Day of the previous year. Countries who still use the Julian Calendar observe New Year's Day on January 14th. It is traditionally celebrated with firework displays across the globe at 00:00 in the local time zones.

Who is working on January 1st?

Around 90% of the world's population observe a public holiday to mark International New Year's Day. What about the other 10%? Read who doesn't celebrate New Year's Day.

History of New Year's Day

New Year's Day was originally observed on March 15th in the old Roman Calendar. When January and February were added during one of the many attempts to clean up the calendar, they were actually added to the end of the year.

The start of the year was fixed at January 1st in 153 BCE, by two Roman consuls. The month was named Janus after the name of the Roman god of doors and gates. Janus had two faces, one facing forward and one looking back, a fitting name for the month at the start of the year.

During the Middle Ages, a number of different Christian feast dates were used to mark the New Year, though calendars often continued to display the months in columns running from January to December in the Roman fashion.

In ancient Babylon, New Year's celebrations involved slapping the king in the face. If the king cried, this was considered a good omen.

For some parts of Europe, New Year's Day was determined by Easter, which meant a different New Year’s Day date every year.

It wasn't until 1582 when the Roman Catholic Church officially adopted January 1st as the New Year.

Most countries in Western Europe had officially adopted January 1st as New Year's Day even before they adopted the Gregorian calendar.

New Year's Resolutions

Many people take the opportunity of the new year to make resolutions. According to a survey by ComRes, the most common New Year's resolutions included exercise more (38%), lose weight (33%) and eat more healthily (32%).

The tradition of setting New Year's resolutions began some 4,000 years ago with the ancient Babylonians, although for them the year began not in January but in mid-March on the first moon after the spring equinox. According to historians, returning that rusty rake you'd borrowed from your neighbour was top of the Babylonian resolution list, along with the timeless promise to pay off debts.