The first two large cities in the world to welcome 2024 were Sydney and Auckland. Amidst breathtaking fireworks displays that lit up the skies over Australia's Sydney Harbor and New Zealand's tallest building, the Auckland Sky Tower, over a million celebrants rang in the New Year on Sunday night.
After a steady light rain that had continued throughout the Auckland day, after midnight the countdown began against an illuminated digital display near the summit of the 328-meter (1,076-foot) communications and observation tower. Sydney, the biggest city in Australia, had a 12-minute fireworks show explode across the Sydney Harbour Bridge as the clock struck midnight. Over a million spectators observed from the waterfront and vessels throughout the harbor. An hour earlier, the tiny Pacific island nations of Kiribati, Samoa, and Tonga had welcomed the New Year.
As people gathered at shrines and temples across Japan to ring in the New Year, temple bells boomed out throughout the country. In front of a stately altar at the Tsukiji Temple in Tokyo, there was a pipe-organ concert, and guests were given free hot milk and corn soup while they waited in line to ring a large bell.
With most large cities banning pyrotechnics due to safety and pollution concerns, China observed the new year in a rather low-key manner. In the course of his New Year's speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping promised that Taiwan would "surely be reunified" and that his nation would concentrate on creating momentum for economic recovery in 2024. Thousands of individuals gathered along a busy promenade in Mumbai, the financial center of India, to watch the sun set over the Arabian Sea. On the first morning of the new year, fireworks in New Delhi caused concerns that the city, which already has poor air quality, would be covered in a poisonous haze.
Watching the yearly fireworks display in London, over a hundred thousand celebrants gathered along the banks of the River Thames. Big Ben and the London Eye were illuminated during the one-hour spectacle. The fireworks in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh attracted tens of thousands of spectators as well. Thousands of people celebrated the New Year with the yearly ritual of a falling crystal-covered ball after spending over twelve hours at Times Square in New York City. Before LL Cool J and Megan Thee Stallion's musical performances and the final countdown to midnight, many had arrived early in the morning to secure a seat in one of the blocked enclosures set up by the New York Police Department.
