New Year

New Year's Day is 1 January, the first day of the year in the Gregorian civil calendar.

The Julian calendar, introduced under Julius Caesar in 45 BCE, already took 1 January as the start of the year. Pope Gregory XIII's reform of 1582 kept that day and corrected the leap-year rule. Countries took up the reform at different times.

This page is the countdown to the next 1 January. It is New Year's Day, not New Year's Eve and not the lunar new year.

Britain and its colonies moved to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, under the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750. Until then the English legal year began on 25 March. Scotland had already begun the year on 1 January in 1600, while still on the Julian calendar.