Fireworks, countdowns, and celebrations took place last night across the globe, as people bid farewell to the year 2019, and welcomed 2020. The first daybreak of the year brought some of those same revelers back out to take part in New Year’s Day swims, or to reflect on the past and offer prayers for the new year. Gathered below, images of some of the varied ways people ushered in the year 2020.
2020: New Year’s Celebrations Around the World
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A Viking longship is burned during New Year’s Eve celebrations at the Flamborough Fire Festival in Flamborough, England, on December 31, 2019. Now in its fifth year, the fire festival attracts more than 15,000 visitors to celebrate the new year and raise money for local community groups and charities. #
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Drones are seen in the sky forming the shape of a countdown clock by Star Island as Singapore awaits the countdown celebration at Marina Bay on December 31, 2019, in Singapore. #
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Sparks from fireworks spill from Sydney's Harbour Bridge as thousands of people line the harbor during New Year's Eve celebrations on January 1, 2020, in Sydney, Australia. #
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Crowds watch and photograph a firework display around the the Arc de Triomphe as Paris welcomes in the New Year with thousands descending on the Champs Elysees to celebrate on January 1, 2019, in Paris, France. #
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Female impersonator Gary Marion, known as "Sushi", sits in a large replica of a women’s high heel shoe during the Red Shoe Drop celebrating the new year above Duval Street in Key West, Florida, on December 31, 2019. #
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Fireworks light the sky above St. Severi's Church, left, and the Mariendom (Cathedral of Mary), right, during New Year's celebrations in Erfurt, Germany, on January 1, 2020. #
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Fireworks illuminate the skyline over the Las Vegas Strip during an eight-minute-long pyrotechnics show during a New Year's Eve celebration on January 1, 2020, in Las Vegas, Nevada. #
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A Chinese woman holding incense offers prayers on the first day of the New Year at Yonghegong Lama Temple in Beijing, China, on January 1, 2020. New Year's Eve isn't celebrated widely in mainland China, where the lunar New Year is a more important holiday. But countdown events were held in major cities, and some of the faithful headed to Buddhist temples for bell-ringing and prayers. #
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A man pushes a small boat carrying flowers and a statue of Yemanja, a deity from the African Yoruba religion, during a ceremony in honor of the goddess of the sea, which is part of New Year celebrations off Praia Vermelha beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on December 31, 2019. #
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Participants take a selfie during the New Year's dive on January 1, 2020 in The Hague, Netherlands. Revelers celebrated the new year by plunging into a frigid North Sea in The Hague's Scheveningen district. #
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Worshipers carry a "mikoshi" or portable shrine into the sea during a festival to wish for calm waters in the ocean and good fortune in the new year in Oiso, Kanagawa prefecture, west of Tokyo, Japan, on January 1, 2020. #
Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters
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