Editing Openai/694d1b2b-4b80-800f-98dd-f97998a7c926 (section)

=== Assistant: The peak is essentially right before 12:00 UTC on Dec 25 — which is 6:59 AM EST on Dec 25. ===
The peak is essentially right before 12:00 UTC on Dec 25 — which is ~6:59 AM EST on Dec 25.

Why that moment is “best”:
* The last inhabited time zone is UTC−11 (American Samoa) Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%E2%88%9211%3A00|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-26}}</ref>
* The earliest time zones include UTC+14 (Line Islands/Kiribati) Time and Date<ref>{{cite web|title=Time and Date|url=https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/kiribati/kiritimati|publisher=Time and Date|access-date=2025-12-26}}</ref>
* At 11:59 UTC on Dec 25: - UTC−11 is 12:59 AM Dec 25 → already on Christmas Day (so no big population is still on Dec 24). Time and Date<ref>{{cite web|title=Time and Date|url=https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/american-samoa|publisher=Time and Date|access-date=2025-12-26}}</ref> - UTC+12 is 11:59 PM Dec 25 → still on Christmas Day. Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC%2B12%3A00|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-26}}</ref> - Only UTC+13 and UTC+14 have rolled into Dec 26 already — and those time zones contain a tiny share of the world’s population relative to Asia/Europe/Africa/Americas. Time and Date<ref>{{cite web|title=Time and Date|url=https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zone/kiribati|publisher=Time and Date|access-date=2025-12-26}}</ref>

So ~6:59 AM EST on Dec 25 is the point where the highest percentage of the world’s population is on Dec 25 (with only a small slice in the far-forward Pacific already on Dec 26).