Samoa was the first country to celebrate the New Year with an inevitable fireworks display. Interestingly, just an hour's flight away is American Samoa, which has to wait 12 hours to ring in 2019 because of the time difference.
Australia's largest city Sydney put on its biggest-ever fireworks display in a spectacular welcome to the New Year, kicking off a wave of celebrations for billions around the world.
A record amount of pyrotechnics as well as new fireworks effects and colours lit up the city's skyline for 12 minutes and dazzled the more than 1.5 million spectators who packed the harbour front and parks.
An earlier thunderstorm did not dampen the spirits of revellers who camped out at vantage points, some since the early hours of the morning.
To mark the international year of indigenous languages in 2019, the harbour also hosted a ceremony celebrating Aboriginal heritage that included animations projected onto the bridge's pylons.
In Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, tens of thousands gathered around Sky Tower as fireworks exploded from the top of the 328-meter (1,076-foot) structure. Across the southern hemisphere nation, thousands took to beaches and streets, becoming the first major nation in the world to usher in 2019.
Fireworks boomed and crackled above city centers and harbors.
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