Name: World Welcomes 2025 With Light Shows and Fireworks
Uploaded: 2025-01-02T03:08:36.000Z
Description: NEW YORK—From Sydney to Mumbai to Paris to Rio de Janeiro, communities around the world welcomed 2025 with spectacular light shows, embraces, and ice plunges.

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NEW YORK—From Sydney to Mumbai to Paris to Rio de Janeiro, communities around the world welcomed 2025 with spectacular light shows, embraces, and ice plunges.

The New Year’s Eve ball dropped in soggy Times Square, where thousands of revelers stuck it out in heavy rain to celebrate the start of 2025 in New York City.

Countries in the South Pacific Ocean were the first to ring in the New Year, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball dropped in Times Square. Auckland was the first major city to celebrate, with thousands thronging downtown or climbing the city’s ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point.

Conflict muted acknowledgements of the start of 2025 in places like the Middle East, Sudan, and Ukraine.

American Samoa is among the last to welcome 2025, a full 24 hours after New Zealand.
<h2>Earliest Fireworks</h2>
A few hours after Auckland, fireworks blasted off Australia's Sydney Harbor Bridge and across the bay. More than a million people gathered at iconic Sydney Harbor for the celebration. British pop star Robbie Williams led a singalong with the crowd.

The celebration also featured Indigenous ceremonies and performances that acknowledged the land’s first people.

Fireworks during New Year's Eve celebrations in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 31, 2024. (Bianca De Marchi/AAP Image via AP)


<h2>American Traditions, Old and New</h2>
In New York City, crowds cheered and couples kissed when the ball weighing almost 6 tons and featuring 2,688 crystal triangles descended down a pole in Times Square. The celebration included musical performances by TLC and Jonas Brothers.

The revelry culminated with a dance party and a carpeting of soggy confetti as attendees left singing along to Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York.”

Angie Cuadradu, from Virginia, said she hopes 2025 is going to be great. “We’re sending positive vibes everywhere," she said.

The ball is seen over Times Square during the 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations in New York on Jan. 1, 2025. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

Revelers celebrate the New Year at Times Square in New York City, just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025. (Yuki Iwamura/AFP via Getty Images)

The Ball Dropping during Times Square New Year's Eve 2025 Celebration in New York on Dec. 31, 2024. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

Las Vegas’ pyrotechnic show was on the Strip, with 340,000 people anticipated as fireworks were launched from the rooftops of casinos. Nearby, the Sphere venue displayed for the first time countdowns to midnight in different time zones.

In Pasadena, California, Rose Parade spectators were camping out and hoping for prime spots. And some 200,000 people flocked to a country music party in Nashville, Tennessee.
<h2>Japan and South Korea</h2>
Much of Japan shut down ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday, as temples and homes underwent a thorough cleaning.

In South Korea, celebrations were cut back or canceled during a period of national mourning following Sunday's crash of a Jeju Air flight in Muan that killed 179 people.

A woman from Nagoya (L) and her friend from Tokyo, both originally from Indonesia, react to their photos they just took as they visit Sensoji Buddhist temple on New Year's Eve in Tokyo on Dec. 31, 2024. (Hiro Komae/AP Photo)


<h2>Seaside Celebrations and Beyond</h2>
In India, thousands of revelers in the financial hub of Mumbai flocked to the city's bustling promenade facing the Arabian Sea. In Sri Lanka, people gathered at Buddhist temples to light oil lamps and incense sticks and pray.

In Dubai, thousands attended a fireworks show at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper. And in Nairobi, Kenya, scattered fireworks were heard.
<h2>Holy Year Begins</h2>
Rome’s traditional New Year’s Eve festivities have an additional draw: the start of Pope Francis’ Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration projected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to the Eternal City in 2025.

On Tuesday, Francis celebrated a vespers at St. Peter’s Basilica. During Mass on Wednesday he is expected to again appeal for peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Jan. 1 is a day of obligation for Catholics, marking the Solemnity of Mary.
<h2>Paris</h2>
Paris capped a momentous 2024 with its traditional countdown and fireworks extravaganza on the Champs-Elysées. The city’s emblematic Arc de Triomphe monument was turned into a giant tableau for a light show that celebrated the city's landmarks and the passage of time, with whirring clocks.

“Paris is a party,” proclaimed Mayor Anne Hidalgo.
<h2>Wintry Weather, for Good and Bad</h2>
London rang in the New Year with a pyrotechnic display along the River Thames. With a storm bringing bitter weather to other parts of the United Kingdom, however, festivities in Edinburgh, Scotland, were canceled.

Fireworks light up the London skyline and Big Ben just after midnight in London, England, on Jan. 1, 2025. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

But in Switzerland and some other places, people embraced the cold, stripping and plunging into the water in freezing temperatures.
<h2>Millions Revel in Rio</h2>
Rio de Janeiro threw Brazil’s main New Year’s Eve bash on Copacabana beach, with barges shooting off 12 straight minutes of fireworks. Thousands of tourists on cruise ships and charter boats witnessed the show up close, while many more streamed onto the sand to find their spot.

The crowd on Copacabana was expected to exceed 2 million people—most decked out in white to keep with tradition. They packed together to enjoy concerts by Brazilian music legends Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia and Ivete Sangalo, among others. Right after the fireworks concluded, Brazil’s biggest pop star, Anitta, took the stage.

“It’s so magical. It’s an incredible thing,” Alejandro Legarreta, a tourist from Puerto Rico, said after diving into the ocean.

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