Fireworks light up the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House during new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, Australia, Jan. 1, 2018.
Residents and visitors across East Asia welcomed 2018 with fireworks and parties Sunday.
Thousands gathered around Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor to watch a 10-minute musical firework display, which included "shooting stars" fired from rooftops and revelers dancing to "Auld Lang Syne."
In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, over 400 couples participated in a New Year's mass wedding provided for free by authorities.
New Zealand, Australia and the surrounding Pacific Islands were among the first places to ring in 2018 hours earlier.
Nearly 1.5 million people gathered to watch a rainbow fireworks display above Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge and the opera house, as the country celebrated legalizing gay marriage.
Thousands lined the streets of Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, for the annual street party and fireworks show above the Sky Tower.
Armed police patrol busy public areas around Westminster as security is stepped up ahead of New Year's Eve celebrations in London, Britain, Dec. 31, 2017.
In preparation for celebrations in cities around the world, hundreds of thousands of law enforcement, military and security officials are being deployed to keep New Year's Eve revelers safe.
In Australia, one of the first places to ring in the new year, officials were out in full force on the ground, air and sea as part of the largest security operation in the country. Police in Melbourne last month arrested a man for planning to shoot revelers on New Year's Eve.
A member of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau monitors security in Times Square ahead of New Year's celebrations in Manhattan, Dec. 29, 2017.
In the United States, New York City officials announced they will use two-step screening, snipers, street closures and specially trained dogs to secure Times Square, as an estimated 2 million people gather to watch the annual ball drop at midnight.
Top News Photos of the Year 2017
Top News Photos of the Year 2017
1/47Stranded passengers ride on a makeshift raft after all ferry service were cancelled, a day after a Philippine vessel capsized because of bad weather in Infanta, Quezon in the Philippines, Dec. 22, 2017.
2/47An undercover Israeli security personnel detains a Palestinian demonstrator during a protest against President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Dec. 13, 2017.
3/47Law enforcement officials work following an explosion near New York's Times Square, Dec. 11, 2017. Police said a man with a pipe bomb strapped to his body set off the crude device in a passageway under 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.
4/47Ukrainian Security Service officers detain former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili at his house in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 5, 2017. Saakashvili has emerged as an anti-corruption campaigner in his new country but faced an angry backlash of protesters who would not let the officers take him away.
5/47People fall as police fire tear gas to try control a crowd forcing their way into a stadium to attend the inauguration of President Uhuru Kenyatta at Kasarani Stadium in Nairobi, Kenya, Nov. 28, 2017.
6/47Britain's Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle pose for photographers during a photocall in the grounds of Kensington Palace in London, Nov. 27, 2017. Britain's royal palace says Prince Harry and actress Meghan Markle are engaged and will marry in the spring of 2018.
7/47Zimbabwe's members of parliament celebrate after President Robert Mugabe's resignation in Harare, Nov. 21, 2017. Mugabe's 37-year reign of brutality and autocratic control crumbled within days of a military takeover.
8/47People remove a protrait of former President Robert Mugabe after his resignation from the wall at the International Conference center in Harare, Nov. 21, 2017.
9/47An Iranian man rests as he lies atop salvaged mattresses and items outside damaged buildings in the town of Sarpol-e Zahab in the western Kermanshah province near the border with Iraq, Nov. 14, 2017, following a 7.3-magnitude earthquake that left hundreds killed and thousands homeless two days before.
10/47Chairs and roses show where people were found dead at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs where 26 people were killed one week earlier, as the church opens to the public as a memorial to those killed, in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Nov. 12, 2017.
11/47A Somali soldier helps a civilian who was wounded in a blast in the capital of Mogadishu, Oct. 14, 2017. A huge explosion from a truck bomb has killed at least 20 people in Mogadishu, police said, as shaken residents called it the most powerful blast they'd heard in years.
12/47An opposition politician of the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition reacts after a gas canister fired by policemen hits his car during a protest along a street in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 13, 2017.
13/47Fire damage is seen from the air in the Coffey Park neighborhood, Oct. 11, 2017, in Santa Rosa, California. More than 200 fire engines and firefighting crews from around the country were rushed to California to help battle infernos which have left at least 21 people dead and thousands homeless.
14/47Investigators load bodies from the scene of a mass shooting at a music festival near the Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip, Oct. 2, 2017, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stephen Paddock, 64, opened fire on the crowd from the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 people.
15/47Solar panel debris is seen scattered in a solar panel field in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Humacao, Puerto Rico, Oct. 2, 2017. President Donald Trump strenuously defended U.S. efforts to bring relief to storm-battered Puerto Rico, even as one island official said Trump was trying to gloss over "things that are not going well," two weeks after devastating Hurricane Maria left much of the island without electricity, fresh water or sufficient food.
16/47People cheer after voting at a school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government at the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, Oct. 1, 2017. The Spanish government and its security forces are trying to prevent voting in the independence referendum, which is backed by Catalan regional authorities.
17/47Residents and cars make their way around and under obstacles blocking a main road nearly a week after Hurricane Maria raked the island, in Frederiksted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Sept. 26, 2017.
18/47Commander General of the Moles Carlos Morales Cienfuegos is seen during a break in the rescue works in Mexico City, Sept. 23, 2017, four days after the powerful quake that hit central Mexico. In the capital, the quake toppled 39 buildings, mostly in a central area with older construction that is popular with tourists and foreigners living in the city, and also in the south.
19/47Rohingya Muslim woman, Hanida Begum, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, kisses her infant son Abdul Masood who died when the boat they were traveling in capsized just before reaching the shore of the Bay of Bengal, in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, Sept. 14, 2017.
20/47Rescuers, firefighters, policemen, soldiers and volunteers desperately remove rubble and debris from a flattened building in search of survivors after a powerful quake in Mexico City, Sept. 19, 2017. A devastating quake killed more than 100 people, according to official tallies, with a preliminary 30 deaths recorded in the capital where rescue efforts were still going on.
21/47Cubans wade through a flooded street near the Malecon in Havana, Sept. 10, 2017. Deadly Hurricane Irma battered central Cuba, knocking down power lines, uprooting trees and ripping the roofs off homes as it headed towards Florida. Authorities said they had evacuated more than a million people as a precaution, including about 4,000 in the capital.
22/47Residents wade through flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Beaumont Place, Houston, Texas, Aug. 28, 2017.
23/47Afghan policemen try to rescue a child at the site of a suicide attack on a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Kabul, Aug. 25, 2017.
24/47People gather at a memorial tribute of flowers, messages and candles to the victims on Barcelona's historic Las Ramblas promenade on the Joan Miro mosaic, Spain, Aug. 28, 2017. At least 13 people were killed after a van crashed into a crowd.
25/47People flee the scene in Barcelona, Spain, Aug. 17, 2017, after a van jumped the sidewalk in the historic Las Ramblas district, crashing into a summer crowd of residents and tourists and injuring several people.
26/47A counter demonstrator uses a lighted spray can against a white nationalist demonstrator at the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017. Police dressed in riot gear ordered people to disperse after chaotic violent clashes between white nationalists and counter protesters.
27/47People enjoy the beach as they look at a forest fire in La Croix-Valmer, near Saint-Tropez, France, July 25, 2017.
28/47This handout image received by local resident Natalie Oxford early on June 14, 2017 shows flames and smoke coming from a 27-story block of apartments after a fire broke out in west London. The fire brigade said 40 fire engines and 200 firefighters had been called to the blaze in Grenfell Tower, which has 120 apartments.
29/47A person believed to be Otto Warmbier is transferred from a medical transport airplane to an awaiting ambulance at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 13, 2017. Warmbier arrived in Ohio after being released by North Korea, where he was serving a 15-year prison term with hard labor for alleged anti-state acts. His parents have said he has been in a coma and was medically evacuated. Warmbier later died.
30/47Johainah Nasrodeng, 5, writes in her notebook at a makeshift classroom for student evacuees at the Pantar Central Elementary School in Pantar, Lanao del Norte on the southern island of Mindanao, the Philippines, June 6, 2017. The schoolchildren, some 238 of them with their parents fled by foot for eight hours from Marawi City to Pantar municipality in a bid to escape heavy fighting.
31/47Philippine troops escort civilians in a village on the outskirts of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao, May 31, 2017, as fighting between government forces and Islamist militants continues. Philippine troops killed 89 Islamist militants during more than a week of urban battles.
32/47A wounded man lies on the ground at the site of a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 31, 2017.
33/47Nyibol Lual, 13, helps her family prepare the land for cultivation in Panthau, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan, May 31, 2017. An estimated 63 percent of the population in Northern Bahr al Ghazal is experiencing severe food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.
34/47A Jewish woman named Renee Rachel Black and a Muslim man named Sadiq Patel react next to floral tributes in St. Ann's Square in Manchester, May 24, 2017. A suicide bomber attacked an Ariana Grande concert as it ended, killing over a dozen of people among a panicked crowd of young concertgoers.
35/47A demonstrator catches fire during clashes with riot police in a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, May 3, 2017. Angry opposition rallied vowing huge street protests against president's plan to rewrite the constitution and accusing him of dodging elections to cling to power despite deadly unrest.
36/47Migrants try to stay afloat during a rescue operation by the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship in the central Mediterranean some 15 nautical miles off the coast of Zawiya in Libya, April 14, 2017. All 134 sub-Saharan migrants survived and were rescued by MOAS.
37/47A woman lies injured after a shooting incident on Westminster Bridge in London, March 22, 2017.
38/47A group of people wade through flood waters to safety in Lima, Peru, March 17, 2017. Thred days of Intense rains and mudslides wrought havoc around the Andean nation.
39/47Mohammed Mohiedin Anis, or Abu Omar, 70, sits in his destroyed bedroom listening to music on his vinyl player, gramophone, in Aleppo's formerly rebel-held al-Shaar neighborhood, Syria, March 9, 2017.
40/47Both screaming in terror, a father and his young daughter flee through the rubble-strewn streets of Wadi Hajar, an Islamic State-controlled part of Mosul, towards Iraqi special forces soldiers, March 4, 2017.
41/47A woman walks towards the border to cross at the U.S.-Canada border after arriving in a taxi with a group that claimed to be from Syria into Hemmingford, Quebec, Canada, March 2, 2017.
42/47Police officers escort Vietnamese suspect Doan Thi Huong, center, from Sepang court in Sepang, Malaysia, March 1, 2017. Appearing calm and solemn, two young women accused of smearing VX nerve agent on Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader, were charged with murder.
43/47Displaced Iraqi women rest in the desert as they wait to be transported while Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Feb. 27, 2017.
44/47Palestinians run for cover as smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas post, in the northern Gaza Strip, Feb. 6, 2017.
45/47A group of migrants, left, gather around a fire to warm themselves in an abandoned warehouse in Belgrade, Serbia, Jan. 30, 2017. Hundreds of migrants have been sleeping in freezing conditions in central Belgrade looking for ways to cross the heavily guarded EU borders.
46/47Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the United States by Chief Justice John Roberts as Melania Trump and his family looks on during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2017.
47/47People take cover outside Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, Jan. 6, 2017, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, after a shooter opened fire inside a terminal of the airport, killing five and wounding more than 30 people before being taken into custody.
