The world has been saying goodbye to 2024 and welcoming 2025 with fireworks, light shows and prayers. Here's how people in different countries celebrated the new year.

As revelers crowd Times Square in New York to count down to midnight, the new year has already started in many time zones across the globe.

People ushered in 2025 with celebrations around the world include grand light shows, embraces and ice plunges — among many other ways communities have begun to ring in the new year.

Auckland became the first major city to welcome 2025, with thousands of revelers counting down to the new year and cheering at colorful fireworks launched from New Zealand's tallest structure, Sky Tower, and a spectacular downtown light show.

Thousands also thronged to downtown or climbed the city's ring of volcanic peaks for a fireworks vantage point and a light display recognizing Auckland's Indigenous tribes. It follows a year marked by protests over Māori rights in the nation of 5 million.

Countries in the South Pacific Ocean are the first to ring in the new year, with midnight in New Zealand striking 18 hours before the ball drop in Times Square in New York.