Japanese Twitter users set a new record on New Year's Eve, sending an all-time high of 6,939 tweets per second (TPS) immediately after midnight.

That activity blows away the previous high record of 3,283 TPS, which was set during Japan's victory over Denmark in the World Cup last summer, Twitter said in a blog post. That record was actually broken 68 times in a three-minute period on New Year's.

As Twitter pointed out, Japanese New Year (or Oshogatsu), is a major event in the country. "Japan virtually shuts down as people spend the day with family and the people with whom they are closest," Twitter wrote. "People make it a point to call their friends and connect with everyone they know to celebrate. With a population of over 127 million, Japanese mobile networks have been known to crash under the strain of this collective cheer. This year, on New Year's Eve, many people turned to Twitter to celebrate."

Japan wasn't the only country celebrating on Twitter, however. "We saw epic tweet activity around the world as people in each time zone inaugurated 2011," Twitter said. "The East coast time zone alone almost amassed the same amount of tweets at its peak of 3,000 TPS as the entire world did during the peak moment of the World Cup."

The micro-blogging site said it was "humbled by moments like this that show how people around the world are connecting and celebrating on Twitter."

For a different take, Twitter put together a video (below) that visualizes Twitter activity on New Year's Eve. "The circles get bigger as more Tweets are being sent at that moment, which means it's probably midnight in that timezone. Notice that the circle over Tokyo gets so big it nearly swallows Japan," Twitter said.